Looking after number 1

Given the date – 22-1 – it felt apposite to focus on goalkeepers’ numbers and then some transfer activity on Wednesday fell right into our laps.

This season has seen Barcelona’s Marc-André ter Stegen fall behind new arrival Joan García in the pecking order – early in the campaign, when the club were having to do their usual fancy footwork regarding player registrations, the German even briefly lost number 1 to Iñaki Peña, prior to his departure on loan to Elche.

Now, with a World Cup on the horizon, ter Stegen has also made a loan switch, joining Girona. Spanish league rules state that goalkeeper should wear numbers 1, 13 or 25 – however, with his new Catalan club already having goalkeepers Dominik Livaković, Paulo Gazzaniga and Vladyslav Krapyvtsov in their senior squad, ter Stegen has been given permission to don 22, as he does for his country.

While it’s rare to see a goalkeeper in Spain wearing 22, it does have a strong tradition elsewhere, dating back to the days of 22-man squads at major international tournaments. Though there have been increases to 23 and then 26 players, five countries at Euro 2024 still allocated 22 to a goalkeeper.

Last summer, two Premier League goalkeepers – David Raya of Arsenal and Newcastle United’s Nick Pope – moved from 22 to 1, taking advantage of a vacancy to reflect their status as their clubs’ “number one”.

While there are of course exceptions, even in the squad numbers era there continues to be a strong desire among goalkeepers to have 1 on their backs.

Of the 20 clubs in the Premier League, 13 could be said to have a first-choice goalkeeper who wears 1 and seven of those have ‘traded down’ from higher numbers – Raya, Robert Sánchez of Chelsea, Crystal Palace’s Dean Henderson, Bernd Leno at Fulham, Alisson Becker (Liverpool), Pope and Tottenham Hotspur’s Guglielmo Vicario.

In addition, Emiliano Martínez of Aston Villa initially moved from 26 to 1 when Tom Heaton left Villa Park but then, at the start of 2024-25, switched to 23 for personal reasons, while Leeds United’s Lucas Perri took 1 when he arrived at Elland Road last summer, meaning that Illan Meslier was displaced – the Frenchman moved to 16, a number often worn by fellow Francophone custodians.

Equally, the prestige of 1 remains strong in the England national team, even with the move away from 1-11. The last time that a goalkeeper with double-digits started a game for England at a major finals was Robert Green in the 2010 World Cup opener against the USA – and that was extra-unusual because, with manager Fabio Capello staying true to his Italian principles, it was 12 rather than the more familiar 13 that Green had Ben Foster in 2014 (see comment below), though of course that was after hopes of qualification had been extinguished.