FanPost

When José Apes Gabriel: A Pointless Banter on Football Numerology (Part 1)

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN a rubbish player, but I had a say once when I was 14 and my high school football team decided that nobody wanted the no. 6 shirt. At the time, the better players predictably hogged the numbers 10, 9, or 7, but, as it happened, not 6. This was not an entirely democratic process, because about a third of the kids were out having their lunch, yet I seized the opportunity and lo, for that year I became the Number Six. The shirt was, would you believe, purple, and it had a blocky white number plastered at the back: six. It was to me the most heroic piece of clothing I have ever owned.

Now, when I said a high school football team, it wasn’t that it was the high school football team. Rather, there was a kind of year-long tournament for students and all classes must participate. My position was a substitute, and, by extension, a centre-back; such was the system. You see, with the exception of goalkeepers, every kid aspired to be a Ronaldo or a Roberto Baggio. If you’re half-decent at football, so it went, you want to attack and score. The rest are basically the sporting equivalent of fluffers: we’re supposed to simply make up the numbers, defend, pass the ball back at the cool kids, and then just let them do their thing.

And yes, in such an intricate, technical setup, I was deemed fit only as a substitute. That tells you everything about the level of sophistication we’re dealing with. Our ragtag bunch went on to become the worst team of the tournament, conceding about six or seven goals a match in average. At one point we congratulated each other at halftime for only conceding three goals. The captain beamed at me: "The practice paid off!" We were San Marino.

But the point is, even if it brings about only memories of a comically awful season, I am still very pleased with that Number Six shirt. There’s something about shirt numbers, especially smaller ones, that gives a mere digit entire worlds of personalities. I particularly liked six, because somehow it felt tough and unyielding. A number six in a team probably smokes and have affairs with the manager’s wife. Eight seems brainier and wise, while seven’s rivalry with nine give them something of a more primal air. They are the most fashionable, for certain: if this were a film, the serenity of eight may be represented by casting Kevin Spacey, but seven and nine practically demand to be played by heartthrobs. They shouldn’t be made to be too stylish though, because ten, by law, must trump everything—after all, it marks the saviour.

My first experience of seeing extreme mold-breaking was way back in the summer of 2000, when I saw a Perugia match aired on television. There, one Luca Saudati had the audacity to wear the number 99. Not long afterwards the Portuguese goalie Vitor Baia followed suit. All this happened quite a while after Ivan Zamorano’s bizarre insistence of putting a plus sign between the 1 and the 8 on his back, of course, but Zamorano’s number was on records 18 and that was well within the norms. Now fast forward thirteen years. Picture Bastian Schweinsteiger chipping a through ball to Thomas Müller, who then whips a cross to Mario Gómez for an easy tap-in. That’s 31-25-33—what devilry is that? Even when the numbers are correct the personalities are all wrong. What’s Alberto Gilardino doing with the number of the messiah? He, like Willem Dafoe in The Last Temptation of Christ, doesn’t fit that messianic profile they're supposed to impersonate.

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Squad numbers, as we know, used to be rigid. A number didn’t belong to a player so much as to a position, which is why a no. 9 tended to score goals—because players who scored goals basically had to wear the number 9. Numbering systems varied according to formations, shapes, culture, and, at times, taste, until at last the practice of assigning numbers to particular players arrived in the '50s. (It was originally a quirk of international football before also becoming the norm in club football since the ‘90s.) Such was the richness of the tradition, so that, in 1995, one Gabriel Batistuta had an easy time picking the number 9 as the permanent number for his Florentine adventures. Fourteen years later, the number was picked by José Ignacio Castillo. There lies the problem.

Above: A rigid scheme from 1924 (left); a more flexible "guideline" for our more civilised age (right)

The truth is no players entrusted with Batigol's Viola number nine shirt ever had much impact since the club's rebirth in the mid-'00s. Some did all right (Christian Riganò comes to mind), but some others were quite ghastly you'd wish they were numbered 34 or 91 instead. Does the number 9 suffer particularly badly when compared to, say, 10 or 7? Or 8? 11? Does it? Does it not? Does anybody care? Probably nobody does. But in a world where a picture of some clam chowder we had for dinner is considered publishable material, it's at least not less interesting. So, here goes.

The Number Seven

We could take the ambitious road at this point and trace the records right from 1926, but there lies madness. A better point to start, I imagine, will be the 2003-04 season, where the club shed the Florentia Viola skin and began its ascent proper as ACF Fiorentina. I could also take the ambitious road here and pretend that I chose this period due to its being a particularly poignant year (it was). But in truth it's because I couldn't find a proper roster sheet from the Lega Pro days. Additionally, if you count from it until today, it would also make a nice bundle of ten seasons in review. We begin:

03-04: 7. Angelo Di Livio (41/4)
04-05: 7. Angelo Di Livio (19/0)
05-06: 7. Guilherme Do Prado (0/0)
06-07: 7. Guilherme Do Prado (0/0)
07-08: 7. Franco Semioli (32/4)
08-09: 7. Franco Semioli (23/0)
09-10: (vacant)
10-11: 7. Mario Santana (30/5)
11-12: 7. Alessio Cerci (26/8)
12-13: 7. David Pizarro (29/3)

The first man to wear the no. 7 shirt in this cycle was Angelo Di Livio, who chose to remain at the club even as it plunged headfirst into the Serie C2 to play with provincial sides. If that doesn't spell class, I don't know what will. It's true that he was already in semi-retirement at that time, but the little soldier did play a sizeable amount of games—I cannot say whether playing in the lower leagues meant he had an easier time or just the opposite.
Verdict: A

Seven, it seems, was off to a good start. Inheriting it from the captain, however, was one Guilherme Do Prado, a Brazilian midfielder/forward. In case you're suspecting he's a youth player, well, he's not, as he was already 24 when he joined the ranks. His stint was plagued with injuries and he didn't play a single minute of official matches in purple. He's plying his trade in Southampton now, if you care.
Verdict: D

Replacing Do Prado was goateeist extraordinaire Franco Semioli, who, unlike his direct predecessor, saw regular playing time in his two-year tenure in the Viola midfield. His era was a pleasant one, although he eventually took a nosedive and at 32 is now a depth player at Vicenza. His goatee is unharmed.
Verdict: B

Semioli had no direct successor, as his post was left vacant in the crazy season of 09-10. The year after that, Argentine Mario Santana decided the "24" on his back was a bit pedestrian and adopt the number. That 10-11 season later proved to be one long misadventure of Siniša Mihajlović—the man was nice and able, but it just didn't work out. Santana, though, was one of the better performers of the season. (The worst one, if you remember, was Mario Bolatti.)
Verdict: C+

The next Viola no. 7 was a natural one: Alessio Cerci, the snivelling prat with an ego the size of a mountain range, was a right-sided winger, with a good left foot for the occasional attempts from the right flanks. You would forgive his bad qualities, though, once you come to appreciate the snivelling-pratness of the team as a whole, exemplified by one Houssine Kharja, a player with an ego bigger than Cerci's and playing impact about on par with an onion. Still, Ale had an all right season, and it was his goal at Lecce that saved Fiorentina from relegation. He has extra points for being an outside right with attitude.
Verdict: B

The man inheriting Cerci's number was, in positional terms, a wrong one. The criminally underrated David Pizarro is a deep-lying playmaker and isn't even a winger of any kind. His arsenal consists of patient buildup plays and intelligent positioning instead of a blistering pace. We do allow for a no. 7 wearing the number solely for significance, and, in that way, it is perfectly justified. Along with the Great Borja Valero, Pek bossed the midfield, becoming the centre of the formidable Three Tenors of Florence. Compared with other players in this list, the number seven was perhaps the most formidable with "Pizarro" written over it.
Verdict: A

Apart from the Do Prado era, the number seven has always been a vital component of the squad, although it's not always consistent with the number's character, as both Di Livio and Pizarro tend to play around the back of the midfield. Should that be on the cons column? Barely, because we would give the the number anyway given the chance. Conclusion: the number seven has been well-treated. As for who's the best #7 among those six, Pek was certainly the best player but Di Livio's dedication earns him the top spot.

Overall verdict: A
Best no. 7: Angelo Di Livio
Worst no. 7: Guilherme Do Prado

The Number Eight

(I know, this is going to be easy.)

03-04: 8. Luca Ariatti (39/0)
04-05: 8. Luca Ariatti (36/2)
05-06: 8. Valeri Bojinov (32/9)
06-07: 8. Michele Pazienza (21/0)
07-08: 8. Michele Pazienza (16/0)
08-09: 8. Stevan Jovetić (35/2)
09-10: 8. Stevan Jovetić (37/11)
10-11: 8. Stevan Jovetić (0/0)
11-12: 8. Stevan Jovetić (29/14)
12-13: 8. Stevan Jovetić (34/13)

To start with, we find ourselves with Luca Ariatti. These days, Mr Luca Ariatti plays for Pescara. Apparently he scored for them once, but only played 16 games in three seasons. Statistics are meaningless, I hear you say—sadly, I really don't have much to say about him, even if he did feature quite heavily in his three years in Florence. That, combined with his position as captain in the latter stages, should suggest reliability. After about two years wearing the number 8, he was shipped to Atalanta.
Verdict: C

Valeri Bojinov, should you remember, was kind of a big deal. He debuted when he was 15 and scored left and right for Lecce at 18. He crossed over to the Renaissance city in winter (15 million Euros!) and was given Ariatti's shirt the following season, where he was a regular. He had a feud with the management and he sucked, beckoning a series of loaning hell. He never realised his potentials, and at one point commited the singularly most embarrassing attempt to save the day at Sporting Lisbon (it also involved the now-Viola Matías Fernández). He now plays for Vicenza, at 27 years of age. This man for some reason grew to hate Fiorentina and at Lecce boasted that he would send us to Serie B. He didn't even play, and Viola won 1-0 (see Cerci, above). It's not mad to say that Houssine Kharja has a better reputation in Florence compared to him. What a colossal tosser.
Verdict: E

Which brings us to Michele Pazienza, then a young defensive midfielder. This one, like Ariatti, seems to be a straightforward kind of player and was not much of a personality. Before being given the no. 8, he wore the rather colourless 17, as a loanee from Udinese. Along with Pazzini, Pazzagli, and Potenza, his name on the roster gave a bit of a tongue-twistery thrill. Pazienza exited the club in the winter of 2008. His destination was Napoli. The boy inheriting his number was...
Verdict: C

... Stevan Jovetić. Jo-Jo, the Precious, the Pride of Florence. Stevan, a Partizan prodigy, was 18 when the number was given to him, and he's since made it his. He had a good, if quiet first season honing his skills, before in late 2009 bullied Liverpool with one Juan Manuel Vargas and exploded into the scene. (If you're a new fan, this was big deal because Liverpool was big deal.) We're all familiar with the rest. There was Mario Bolatti, the nightmare 10-11 season, and then there was his recovery, and finally the agonising transfer rumours. Jovetić, all things considered, is still Fiorentina's main man, especially for outsiders. I didn't think it was even possible to redeem a number so sullied by Valeri Bojinov, but he did it. Supposedly he took a liking to the number 8 because of Dejan Savićević. And it does suit him.
Verdict: A

Jo-Jo has been the holder for the number eight for half the cycle; five seasons, starting from the summer of 2008. Considering the relative quietness of Ariatti and Pazienza, and the sheer unlikeability of that certain other person, number eight is quite simply Stevan Jovetić. It's good when a number is being passed around by many deverving players, but better when one player makes it his. The Viola no. 8 is in good hands, and hopefully will remain so, however you wish to interpret this sentence.

Overall verdict: B+
Best no. 8: Stevan Jovetić
Worst no.8: Valeri Bojinov

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Numbers 9, 10, and 11 will be covered in Part 2.

Hibs #9 shirt image from OldFootballShirts.com. Formation displays made with Lineup Builder. Photos of Angelo Di Livio and Stevan Jovetic from Libero.it directory and FM Scrapbook respectively.

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