Fixed numbering was first introduced for the World Cup in 1954.
The edition previous to that, in Brazil in 1950, was the first to have any kind of shirt numbers – while most countries lined out 1-11, the United States had an irregular and unstructured approach, with high numbers used but not necessarily by the same player in each game. At this remove, it’s unlikely that we or anyone else will properly get to the bottom of it.
That tournament didn’t have a ‘final’ per se, with the last four countries playing a round-robin; Uruguay beat Brazil at the culmination of that to take the title, though a draw would also have done them. It meant that, technically speaking, nobody had lined up for a World Cup final numbered 1-11 until 2010.
As outlined – and corrected – by Jim Hearson in his splendid series, some winners went closer than others; among runners-up, the Netherlands ‘Total Football’ sides of 1974 and 1978 were certainly in the further-away category.
In 1974, when they qualified for the finals for the first time since 1938, their squad was numbered alphabetically – apart, of course, from captain John Cruyff, who had his favoured 14, and on a Puma kit rather than the adidas of his team-mates.
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They lost 2-1 to West Germany in the decider; four years on, a Cruyff-less side again made the final but again lost to the hosts, beaten by Argentina.
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On that occasion, most of the survivors from 1974 retained their digits while others fitted in alphabetically around them. Incidentally, the Argentina squad that won the tournament was numbered fully alphabetically.
After 1978, the Netherlands would not make it back to the World Cup finals until 1990 and by that stage the numbering had become more conventional and that would continue to be the case.
In the group stage of the 2010 competition in South Africa, the Dutch had ten of the players in the 1-11 bracket for two matches and nine for the other – number 23 Rafael van der Vaart started all three while Khalid Boulahrouz (12) also featured – but Bert van Marwijk’s side were 1-11 for the last-16 win over Slovakia.
Number 13 André Ooijer started the quarter-final victory against Brazil while Boulahrouz was back in for the semi-final against Uruguay, along with Demy de Zeeuw (14). However, after a 3-2 victory there sent them through to the final against Spain, the of Low Countries reached new heights as history was created with their lineup.
One might say that the wingers should be switched, or that it wasn’t the quintessential Dutch formation – we won’t even get on to the purists’ concerns over the style of football – but that would be picky in the extreme.
Let us simply be happy that it happened – knowing Fifa, it surely can’t be long before limitations on higher numbers are removed and the chances of a 1-11 occurring again become ever remote.
