Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventy World Cup, Brazil played England in
Speaker 1: the group stages. After the match, Bill swapped shirts with
Speaker 1: the legendary defender Bobby Moore, who players, but a few
Speaker 1: hours later he almost had to go ask Bobby Moore
Speaker 1: for his jersey back. You see, during the game, thieves
Speaker 1: had broken into the locker room and stolen all his jerseys.
Speaker 1: Back then, in seventy it wasn't that easy to get
Speaker 1: official World Cup jerseys mailed to you in a timely fashion.
Speaker 1: But perhaps one of the reasons why the thieves wanted
Speaker 1: those jerseys was because Bill wore the number ten, a
Speaker 1: number that he made iconic. I think it's probably the
Speaker 1: only number now, not probably, it is the only number
Speaker 1: now that's still written haines the weight and still gets
Speaker 1: the oo and awe and and still when you say it,
Speaker 1: people that are watching the game and people that have
Speaker 1: followed the game know exactly what you're talking about. And
Speaker 1: more importantly, there is a collective and accepted type of
Speaker 1: expectation that comes with that. The number ten has a
Speaker 1: special place in soccer. It's an archetype, if you will,
Speaker 1: an emblem. What I'm saying is it's the most famous
Speaker 1: number in soccer. That's what life is about. Change is constant,
Speaker 1: but the ten has endured. It's a legendary number. It's
Speaker 1: venerated as being the soul of the team. Really, this
Speaker 1: is the savior, this is the hope in Italy. It's
Speaker 1: even got a fantasista. I think there's something so irresistible
Speaker 1: about the center of gravity and a team. Then there's
Speaker 1: the the aura of the number ten. He stepped out
Speaker 1: of another dimension, that beautiful arrogance. He was flowing the
Speaker 1: ultimate number ten. He was fragile, the most dominant playmaker.
Speaker 1: He was phenomenal, of course, just a phenomenal player. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you want the ball at the feet of your
Speaker 1: best player. There's nobody who epitomized the romance of the
Speaker 1: ten the way he did. And so I guess he
Speaker 1: wasn't God. He was human. If that's what makes number
Speaker 1: tend the most iconic shirt in football? How did ten
Speaker 1: become the most coveted number, so much so that it
Speaker 1: was worth stealing? And if you're listening, you're a perfect
Speaker 1: ten to me, because today is all about the number ten.
Speaker 1: I'm Nando Vila and you're listening to the best soccer
Speaker 1: podcast in the World goes with the Christiano Ronaldo, Yes, wonderful,
Speaker 1: Never to soccer. Players didn't always wear numbers, you know.
Speaker 1: The Derby Daily Telegraph called the ninety three f A
Speaker 1: Cup Final the most novel cup final in the history
Speaker 1: of football. Quote every player for the first time, we'll
Speaker 1: have a huge distinguishing number on his back. One team
Speaker 1: war one through eleven and the other twelve through twenty two.
Speaker 1: So you know they actually we didn't have short you know,
Speaker 1: short numbers for the first sort of sixty years of
Speaker 1: the game, right, But shirt numbers help you identify the player.
Speaker 1: And as a kid, you watch television and you generally
Speaker 1: want to be the most skillful player, and it's generally
Speaker 1: the guy with number ten on the back. This is
Speaker 1: senior writer for ESPN. But how did the most skillful
Speaker 1: player end up with number ten in the first place? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so the a brief history of numbers and soccer. Right
Speaker 1: when numbers were first created, teams played a two three
Speaker 1: five formation. You had two defenders, you had three midfielders,
Speaker 1: and you had five forwards. The English Football Association started
Speaker 1: mandating shirt numbers during the nineteen thirties, one through eleven
Speaker 1: on each side back. Then, instead of the players keeping
Speaker 1: one number that followed them, the position kept the number
Speaker 1: number one as a goalkeeper. Two and three are the
Speaker 1: two defenders. Four or five and six are your midfielders.
Speaker 1: Seven through eleven are your forwards. At this time, tactics
Speaker 1: are evolving, a midfielder or two drops into defense, and
Speaker 1: they started to drag their numbers along with them. So
Speaker 1: once two of those three moved back and one became
Speaker 1: the defender, you had the two inside forwards moving back.
Speaker 1: And because the forwards were seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,
Speaker 1: eight and ten moved into midfield. The number ten is
Speaker 1: the guy who facilitated play. This varied by country. For instance,
Speaker 1: in England, the ten was a striker. Ten has always signified,
Speaker 1: though regardless of where you were, a player who operated
Speaker 1: centrally and was an outstanding and was usually your your
Speaker 1: most gifted player. Could be a forward, could be an
Speaker 1: attacking midfielder, but always central. And then, of course, the
Speaker 1: rest of the mythologists to do with the players who
Speaker 1: wore from Belle to Maldonna. That's what makes number ten
Speaker 1: the most iconic shirt in football. The story of how
Speaker 1: ten became the dude dates back three quarters of a century,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of a fluke. It's June. Picture
Speaker 1: yourself as you're about to tune in. You're at the
Speaker 1: rich kid's house where they have a new fangled television set.
Speaker 1: You're using air assault deodorant and fluoride toothpaste fresh on
Speaker 1: the market for the first time that year. The polio
Speaker 1: vaccine courses through your veins and spot Nick circles the
Speaker 1: skies above you. Minimum wages one dollar. Everyone agrees they
Speaker 1: wanted to spend it on a hula hoop or barbie.
Speaker 1: This Christmas. You turn off Elvis now in stereo long
Speaker 1: enough to watch the Big Game. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: really big changes happening really quickly in technology and science
Speaker 1: around this time, but none of it has prepared you
Speaker 1: for this seventeen and a half year old, thick, thied
Speaker 1: kid on the TV who does things with his leather
Speaker 1: paneled pick bladder that you didn't know were even possible
Speaker 1: within the laws of physics. It feels like your brain
Speaker 1: is being pulled apart, segment by segment, like orange slices,
Speaker 1: rearranged and put back into your skull prope That kid
Speaker 1: is called Bile real name Edson Arantis Donacimento. He's wearing
Speaker 1: the number ten. He scores one more in a five
Speaker 1: to win over host Sweden in the World Cup final.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the first internationally televised World Cup. In
Speaker 1: the grainy black and white footage, you can't see that
Speaker 1: Brazil lost the coin toss and had to wear blue
Speaker 1: jerseys with improvised yellow numbering. Just how did the youngest
Speaker 1: player ever to appear in a World Cup final nab
Speaker 1: the number ten jersey? Pure dumb luck. When Brazil sent
Speaker 1: in their roster paperwork, they hadn't included the numbers. And
Speaker 1: when I say sent in paperwork, I mean just that
Speaker 1: this was eight years before fax machines were invented. There's
Speaker 1: this FIFA stooge, Lorenzo Vilitio. He's from Uruguay and he's
Speaker 1: sitting in the FIFA offices checking all the rosters. There
Speaker 1: isn't enough time to mail something to the Brazilian federation
Speaker 1: and have the mail back squad numbers, which had been
Speaker 1: mandatory since the previous World Cup in ninety four. So
Speaker 1: what does Lorenzo Elio do? He assigns numbers arbitrarily. Gilma,
Speaker 1: the starting goalkeeper, gets the number three very weird for
Speaker 1: a goalkeeper, and oh sure, why not? He gets the
Speaker 1: number ten at the insistence of the players themselves. Manager
Speaker 1: of Vigenti Fiola has quoted a bandy leg right winger
Speaker 1: named Grincha and a seventeen year old inside left named Pillow.
Speaker 1: The number ten was what Bile was wearing when he
Speaker 1: fainted as Brazil won their first World Cup trophy. It's
Speaker 1: the jersey he wore while all his teammates lifted him ugly,
Speaker 1: crying onto their shoulders, but I started. That's the same
Speaker 1: number he wore on the jersey he used to wipe
Speaker 1: his tears after scoring his thousandth career goal for Santos.
Speaker 1: That's the number burned into our memories of the first
Speaker 1: World Cup, televised in color, the number ten standing out
Speaker 1: against bright yellow at Briszil take the lead and all
Speaker 1: mighty leap by the famous Brazil number. It's at the
Speaker 1: Italian defense appeared to have any danger covered, but Pelle
Speaker 1: just seemed to hang in the air. A majestic kenna
Speaker 1: for Waldo. That's the jersey the Cosmos retired at halftime
Speaker 1: of his farewell match. When he took it off, waved
Speaker 1: it to the crowd and handed it to his father,
Speaker 1: father and son. Here is the moment. Number ten of
Speaker 1: the Cosmos just appears forever. That's the jersey the Cosmos
Speaker 1: retired again for some reason when the club reformed three
Speaker 1: decades later. And that's the jersey number he wore for
Speaker 1: the Allied prisoners against the Nazis. In the movie Victory,
Speaker 1: starring Slice Alone and Michael Caine, Slice Alone played goalkeeper cool.
Speaker 1: I have to give me ball here. I do these
Speaker 1: these these easy watch billet fer Santos or early black
Speaker 1: and white Brazil. And what stands out is the only
Speaker 1: thing on his crisp white jersey is the number ten.
Speaker 1: No name, no sponsors, no logos, just ten chased all
Speaker 1: out of the field. There are players on the box,
Speaker 1: respectators on the box. He's on the box about wanted
Speaker 1: is being mobbed. He's fund of the whole lot of that.
Speaker 1: By the time pill joined the Cosmos, he himself was
Speaker 1: the emblem. Henry Kissinger of all people, convinced Bills to
Speaker 1: move to the United States in order to further American interests.
Speaker 1: He was voted the most famous person in the world.
Speaker 1: And get this, the athlete of the century. The Brazilian
Speaker 1: government passed a bill naming him a national treasure. The
Speaker 1: Biafrian war plaguing Nigeria, paused for two days to see
Speaker 1: him play. The Pope was nervous to meet him. The
Speaker 1: New York Times called him the Beatles, Babe Ruth and
Speaker 1: Billy Graham all rolled into one. His nickname is are
Speaker 1: the King or Are de Fucibo, the King of football.
Speaker 1: This was all before Jersey has had names on the back.
Speaker 1: Footage was rudimentary, sometimes too grainy to even make out
Speaker 1: facial features. It makes sense that fans might instead develop
Speaker 1: an affinity for a position, for a thing they could
Speaker 1: see a number, So the number ten Jersey and soccer.
Speaker 1: I think traditionally it means that this is your and
Speaker 1: the word that we we love to use in soccer.
Speaker 1: It's probably overused, but this is your talisman. This is
Speaker 1: the person that leads you on and off the field.
Speaker 1: This is the person that personifies the way that you
Speaker 1: want to play. This is the savior, This is the hope.
Speaker 1: This is your creative force on the field. This is
Speaker 1: the person that if you need that moment of magic
Speaker 1: and greatness. This is the person that you believe is
Speaker 1: going to provide it for This is Alexei Lawless. He
Speaker 1: marked many a number ten as a defender for the
Speaker 1: USA and in Italy. He's now a commentator for Fox Sports.
Speaker 1: So when you're dealing with the number ten of any
Speaker 1: ability or talent, you first have to come to grips
Speaker 1: with the fact that he or she is going to
Speaker 1: do damage. So you can't stop it, but you're going
Speaker 1: to have to limit that damage. And so how are
Speaker 1: you gonna go about doing that? Are you gonna have
Speaker 1: somebody that follows the number ten everywhere they go, including
Speaker 1: to the bathroom and back. Maybe you're not going to
Speaker 1: do that. Maybe you're gonna buy committee try to shut
Speaker 1: them down. Are you gonna do it in a less
Speaker 1: than honorable way? Which is certainly an effective way? So
Speaker 1: hack a shack or whatever the best players want to
Speaker 1: wear number ten. More about what happened next. After the
Speaker 1: break in the First World Cup, post pl Argentina came
Speaker 1: up with a new numbering system to prevent arguments. They
Speaker 1: assigned numbers alphabetically. This led to a weird situation in
Speaker 1: a later Copa Medica where the goalkeeper war number ten.
Speaker 1: It's just wrong. Argentina kept this system for over a decade,
Speaker 1: except there was one permitted exchange numbers. Ten and twelve
Speaker 1: swap numbers before the tournament. That's because a skinny twenty
Speaker 1: one year old boy with a poufy fro was already
Speaker 1: the dude. Madonna Marivona was captain and maintained the number ten,
Speaker 1: and Argentina won the World Cup and the man who
Speaker 1: received it is Diego Maradonna of Argentina. The world's greatest
Speaker 1: player receives the world most important or bride who wore
Speaker 1: it best? I mean for me, it's Diego. I mean
Speaker 1: Diego Maradona for me, is still the greatest player ever
Speaker 1: to play the game. I mean, there's no there's no
Speaker 1: argum like I'm too young for pet, but there's only
Speaker 1: one Marigona. I'm not saying he's the greatest ever, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying there's nobody who epitomized the romance of the
Speaker 1: ten the way he did. Both Alexi and gab are
Speaker 1: sophisticated gentleman of a certain age, which means they were
Speaker 1: young and impressionable when Maddona was making an impression. You're
Speaker 1: always going to have the baggage of when you grew
Speaker 1: up been time, and there will be someone that didn't
Speaker 1: grow up with the Maradona era that will look at
Speaker 1: messy and won't be able to be persuaded other than
Speaker 1: it's it's him. I think that you know what, diego
Speaker 1: Maradona for me, much more so than Paley or anybody. Well.
Speaker 1: First off, the first World Cup I ever saw and again,
Speaker 1: I was sixteen years old and I was in the
Speaker 1: lobby of the of the Holiday Inn. They set up
Speaker 1: a TV. And it was the summer of six and
Speaker 1: I was on I was in Colorado, in Colorado Springs
Speaker 1: at the Pike's Peak Invitational tournament with my travel team
Speaker 1: from Michigan, and we set up a television in the
Speaker 1: lobby of the Holiday in there in Colorado Springs and
Speaker 1: we would watch the World Cup. What did teenager Alexey
Speaker 1: c well against England in the quarterfinals, he saw two
Speaker 1: of the most famous goals of all times. Gonna has
Speaker 1: scored first blood to Argentina. England far from happy. I
Speaker 1: think they've seen an infringement. That is why England is
Speaker 1: so furious. It's Maradonna has punched it in with his
Speaker 1: left hand. Famously said that the goal was scored quote
Speaker 1: a little with the head of Maddona and a little
Speaker 1: with the hand of God. And just a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: Maradonna brilliantly just gets away from Read and now motors
Speaker 1: up through the gears and he's beating Butcher, and he's
Speaker 1: beating Fedic. It's Diego Maradonna, and it is quite magnificent.
Speaker 1: If there was an element of dad about the first goal,
Speaker 1: there's no controversy about that moment of genius from Diego Maradonna.
Speaker 1: Touches eleven seconds sixty eight ms. FIFA voted it the
Speaker 1: goal of the century. He's a man, but he was
Speaker 1: doing things that I had never seen be done, and
Speaker 1: and I loved that well. I looked at him as
Speaker 1: a god. Even in that tournament, he became human, and
Speaker 1: he wore his passion on his sleeve, and he was
Speaker 1: equal parts saint and sinner. The jersey Manvona was wearing
Speaker 1: that day sold at an auction for nine point three
Speaker 1: million dollars. Napoli. Maravona's team in Italy retired his number ten.
Speaker 1: Argentina tried to. They submitted a World Cup roster in
Speaker 1: two thousand two without anyone listed at number ten. FIFA refused.
Speaker 1: FIFA president, stept Bladder suggested giving the number to the
Speaker 1: third string goalie. That way, Argentina's number ten would be
Speaker 1: legally permitted to use his hands. Oh that's stept Bladder,
Speaker 1: always with the singers. In two thousand and five, Maravana
Speaker 1: hosted a weekly TV show called Ten's Night. It started
Speaker 1: at ten pm. He is the ultimate, the ultimate number
Speaker 1: ten that makes of anarchy, of creativity, of of leadership,
Speaker 1: as well the fact that he could be as one
Speaker 1: sort of individual and represent the team. All the ingredients
Speaker 1: of the perfect time are there. You know, don't one
Speaker 1: upset the Messy fans or the Ronaldo fans, but MESSI
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, maybe they're better players. Fine, but the
Speaker 1: number ten is Diego. Did he wear it with the
Speaker 1: most honor? I guess if you want to say, what
Speaker 1: depends you know what you think of it. I just
Speaker 1: think that he was the most interesting and the most
Speaker 1: human of the ten gods out there, and so I
Speaker 1: guess he wasn't a god. He was human. By now,
Speaker 1: it was sealed, not one, but two of the greatest
Speaker 1: to ever pull out a soccer jersey had the number
Speaker 1: ten stitched on the back. The number ten was an
Speaker 1: icon everyone had to have one. It's our old paleln
Speaker 1: Salez called better than Bill or himself Fast, the team
Speaker 1: he always played for, retired Machico's number ten jersey after
Speaker 1: he finally quit. France has produced two great number ten's.
Speaker 1: My personal favorite number ten is welcome Michael Jakin, the
Speaker 1: number ten of Contrarians. Well, he was just one of
Speaker 1: the most elegant and dominant playmakers ever, made them most
Speaker 1: dominant playmaker ever. Between three six Latini won the Ballonda
Speaker 1: or three times, the City Are, twice, the European Cup,
Speaker 1: the Cup Winners Cup, the Euros and got third in
Speaker 1: the World Cup. He was just a phenomenal player and
Speaker 1: I enjoy watching his highlights more than I enjoy watching Maradonna.
Speaker 1: For example, go back, what let we go? Number ten
Speaker 1: tend to be associated with the big moments in the
Speaker 1: big tournaments where they provide the difference. There are stories
Speaker 1: about tournaments being dominated by players at times just run perception,
Speaker 1: you know, because for example, Didan was poor, he was
Speaker 1: outright paw during the ninety eight World cuple yourself breath
Speaker 1: to badger. You had a poor tournament and four Italy
Speaker 1: throughound this tournament. But in Europe eighty four when France
Speaker 1: won and Michelle Platiny scored in every game and was
Speaker 1: the top score of the tournament. From mid field, he
Speaker 1: scored two hatricks. It's probably the best tournament by any player, really,
Speaker 1: by any player ever. The guy scored nine goals in
Speaker 1: five matches from midfield and led his team to their
Speaker 1: frost ever gold medals. That was for me, the greatest
Speaker 1: performance by a single player in a single tournament. Of course,
Speaker 1: Zidan went and did what Platini couldn't, winning France's first
Speaker 1: World Cup wearing the number ten. Saddan was the quiet
Speaker 1: or silent assassin, and it was almost as if he
Speaker 1: played with a belief that it was almost beneath him
Speaker 1: to even be there with you. And you know that
Speaker 1: beautiful arrogance all the world traffias on the brush lights,
Speaker 1: around the stud brows. There were times where his fury
Speaker 1: and his anger on the field was because it was
Speaker 1: so easy for him and that he was operating on
Speaker 1: a different plane, and so that you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: how good he was. More about what happened next after
Speaker 1: the break. Besides, when you grew up the number ten,
Speaker 1: you most venerate depends on where you grow up. Well,
Speaker 1: it's blue and it's fluttering in the wind, and fluttering
Speaker 1: on top of it is a crinkly ponytail. Oh, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? What does it mean? I think, men,
Speaker 1: what does it mean to me? Of having raptures about
Speaker 1: Davino Cordinot. But you're saying, what does the number ten
Speaker 1: jersey mean? In Italy? And I think everywhere, but particularly
Speaker 1: in Italy, it's venerated as being the soul of the team. Really,
Speaker 1: James Richardson hosted the Totally Football show Everybody the Divine Ponytail.
Speaker 1: That's his nickname. That's what his Netflix biopick is called
Speaker 1: for all of us who had our regretted rat tail phase.
Speaker 1: Baggio made it cool. He won two city our titles,
Speaker 1: the Blunder and finished second and third in the World Cup.
Speaker 1: Bricia retired the number ten jersey after he left. I
Speaker 1: was blessed to be living in Italy, not just a lie,
Speaker 1: but living in Italy at the time when you had
Speaker 1: three of the greatest number ten's ever soon to be
Speaker 1: followed by another Francisco Totti, because you had Zola and
Speaker 1: Badjo and Robetto Mancini, all doing their thing in number
Speaker 1: ten jerseys and city at the same time, and that
Speaker 1: was extraordinary. But there was something about bad Joe, and
Speaker 1: I can't put my finger on it. There was just
Speaker 1: something about him that he'd stepped out of another dimension. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so Banco, how did he play? I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: he kind of defied description because he was so good.
Speaker 1: And nowadays we have players with incredible armories of skills
Speaker 1: and flicks and tricks and their names for a lot
Speaker 1: of them. But Badger didn't really do those things. Sure,
Speaker 1: he famously scored a Rabona goal, and he would do
Speaker 1: stupid stuff like that, but generally speaking, he was a
Speaker 1: lot more essential than that. He was flowing, he was fragile.
Speaker 1: He was phenomenal, of course, but he seemed the way
Speaker 1: that he moved on the field for me was a
Speaker 1: little bit like a leaf skipping along on an autumn breeze.
Speaker 1: He would just seem to glide along, and there wasn't
Speaker 1: any much as a leaf. There wasn't any great kind
Speaker 1: of directness necessarily to the movement. But there wasn't anything
Speaker 1: that you could put your finger on. You couldn't pin
Speaker 1: him down. And yes, he was gone, and there's just
Speaker 1: something about him and the way that he the dignity
Speaker 1: that he always had, and the grace he had. And yeah,
Speaker 1: for me, he's the greatest number ten we got. FIFA
Speaker 1: made changes to uniforms. They added squad numbers to the
Speaker 1: front and put player names on the back. Commercial sponsors
Speaker 1: threatened to crowd out any blank space, but cluttered as
Speaker 1: uniforms have become. That number ten is still special when
Speaker 1: you see it. So maybe it's all for the best
Speaker 1: that Argentina couldn't retire in Maritona's jersey. I don't think
Speaker 1: you can talk about the ten without talking about Argentina.
Speaker 1: And there you have, of course Madelona, of course Messi
Speaker 1: and one Romano Gillman as someone who's seen Messy play
Speaker 1: in person and sees the highlights of Madonna. For me, Messi,
Speaker 1: we'll go down in history as the best ever time.
Speaker 1: And um, John, where should we forward our hate mail?
Speaker 1: I'll take you this fine. I'm John Arnold, journalist who's
Speaker 1: been covering US soccer for more than a decade. You know,
Speaker 1: little Leo Messi, he just won his first World Cup
Speaker 1: and has won every single other trophy and award multiple times,
Speaker 1: setting all sorts of scoring and assisting records, crowd standing
Speaker 1: as one. It is Bess searching for with real menace
Speaker 1: here for Messy. Oh what a go? This is a
Speaker 1: gorgeous one and Messi will not be denied this time.
Speaker 1: I think he'll be looked at as the best tent
Speaker 1: and the best player we've ever seen. I hope he
Speaker 1: gets surpassed, because that's what sports is about, that's what
Speaker 1: life is about. Change is constant. We want to see
Speaker 1: our greats surpassed. And I think people who always stumped
Speaker 1: for the guy that they watched, right, because it's always
Speaker 1: going to feel like the best when you were watching
Speaker 1: and you saw it, and that's your guy. But to me,
Speaker 1: I think Messi will go down as the best ten
Speaker 1: and I'd make the case. It's a tired debate in
Speaker 1: the low out of ways, I think. But the number
Speaker 1: ten isn't any particular guy. It's an idea. It's an archetype,
Speaker 1: and there's unwritten rules about who is allowed to wear
Speaker 1: the number ten jersey. When the number ten goes to
Speaker 1: someone less talented, it's funds don't like, it's the press doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's considered a big problem. For example, Italy at the
Speaker 1: Sultan stage gave thember ten shots to Thiago Mota, who
Speaker 1: actually is a very good player. He's a very intelligent player,
Speaker 1: but he's a defensive midfield and given him the number
Speaker 1: ten shots was considered a cry by the tenants. William Gallas,
Speaker 1: a French defender war number ten at Arsenal, people still
Speaker 1: talk about how dumb that was. Goalkeeper Castello got the jersey,
Speaker 1: yet give An. He did it to win a bet
Speaker 1: with his friends. There's this Latani Bradaimovich quote that I
Speaker 1: think about a lot. This big Norwegian striker named John
Speaker 1: Carew that one day made fun of latan S excessive flicks.
Speaker 1: So Latan says, what John Carew can do with a football,
Speaker 1: I can do with an orange. The old man I thought,
Speaker 1: I used to juggle with an orange while doing errands
Speaker 1: as a boy, A barefoot at bill dribbled grape fruits
Speaker 1: through the streets of Baudou. These are guys who seem
Speaker 1: to be playing a different sport with a different set
Speaker 1: of Newtonian laws. Then there's the the aura of the
Speaker 1: number ten, and you know that ah factor, whether it's
Speaker 1: out loud or whether it's whispered, you know it's it's
Speaker 1: like kaiser so say, or something like that. You know
Speaker 1: you're you feel that you are in the presence of
Speaker 1: something special, and even that can make you do things
Speaker 1: that you didn't normally do. So, you know, stepping on
Speaker 1: the field with with the greats, you have to be
Speaker 1: aware of them, but you can't drown in your awe
Speaker 1: of them, otherwise they've already won. The ten is the
Speaker 1: player who does things that no one else saw coming.
Speaker 1: Typically a player who is able to find the past
Speaker 1: that creates the goal and often has to be extremely
Speaker 1: creative to find that. There's something so irresistible about the
Speaker 1: center of gravity and a team a guy who always
Speaker 1: wants the ball at his feet, and you know when
Speaker 1: you get the ball to him, something is going to happen.
Speaker 1: You know, there is a Spanish phrase, the ball always
Speaker 1: goes to the ten. And when you have that type
Speaker 1: of player, that sort of son that everything else orbits around,
Speaker 1: it's so special when it happens and it comes together
Speaker 1: and it it actually works. I think the number ten
Speaker 1: shirt is venerated in Italy because more often than not,
Speaker 1: all the other work that the team does can really
Speaker 1: only come to its ultimate fluation if the number ten
Speaker 1: does his job. It's essentially all going through him and
Speaker 1: the strikers. What they achieve will be because of what
Speaker 1: the number ten has done. He he is the mind
Speaker 1: of the team. He is also and I think this
Speaker 1: is possibly also a particularly Italian perspective, because at times
Speaker 1: their football wasn't as imaginative as, say, as some other
Speaker 1: Latin nations. He was also the one player you would
Speaker 1: rely on to have esther to bring some kind of fantasy.
Speaker 1: In fact, in Italy it's even called a fantasist at
Speaker 1: that position, to bring some creativity to the team, to
Speaker 1: do the unexpected, to achieve the impossible at a time
Speaker 1: when it seemed that there were no options. The fantasist
Speaker 1: that the number ten will be able to magic something up,
Speaker 1: the ultimate creative player, the player who's I guess sole
Speaker 1: responsibility was to be creative. Different sports revere different numbers.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows Michael Jordan war twenty three right. Jordan played
Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties, But before we had names
Speaker 1: on jerseys or substitutions, or cards, or color TVs or
Speaker 1: fax machines, soccer had number ten. The best soccer podcast
Speaker 1: in the world is a production of exiled content Studios
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Hearts Michael podcast Network and is
Speaker 1: hosted by Me Nando Villa, produced by An and Zach
Speaker 1: Lee Rigg, Written by Zach Lee Rigg. Production assistants by
Speaker 1: Stella Emmett. Our executive producers are Isaac Lee Rose Reed
Speaker 1: and myself Nando Villa. Our executive producers at I Heart
Speaker 1: are Gisel Dances and Arlene Santana. Sound designed by Ula
Speaker 1: Mendoza Are Awesome. Theme song is by lu j Special
Speaker 1: Thanks to all the voices who participated in this episode,
Speaker 1: John Arnold, Alexei Lallas, Michael Yoke and James Richardson and
Speaker 1: Gabriele Marcoti. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows,