Other than being subbed off after having already entered the fray as a substitute, there are few indignities felt more keenly in football than seeing your designated shirt number given away to a new signing.
Raheem Sterling was on the receiving end of that very snub last week after Chelsea removed the England winger’s No. 7 shirt and exiled him from the first-team group and gave it to Pedro Neto, who was signed from Wolves.
Sterling isn’t the first player to face such humiliation and likely won’t be the last, though given the perceived severity and potential ego-wounding ramifications of a senior player being subjected to such a professional slight, it isn’t a phenomenon that tends to crop up particularly regularly at the top end of the game.
Here are a few more prominent examples that have taken place in recent years, along with a slightly more thorough examination of Sterling’s rocky departure from Stamford Bridge last month.
Having previously worn No. 7 at Manchester City for seven seasons, Sterling was initially unable to take his number of choice at Chelsea with N’Golo Kanté already incumbent. However, after Kante left for Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2023, the Blues’ No. 7 shirt was handed to Sterling, who proceeded to wear it for one season at the Bridge.
Unfortunately, a loss of form resulted in Sterling losing his grip on the shirt at the tail end of August after it was revealed that the 29-year-old England international had been left out of new manager Enzo Maresca’s plans for the 2024-25 campaign.
With the transfer deadline looming and a season in the doldrums on the cards, Sterling was ultimately able to salvage the situation by securing a late loan switch to London rivals Arsenal on deadline day — though understandably the Gunners weren’t willing to let Sterling take over their No. 7 shirt from Bukayo Saka, so No. 10 will have to do for the time being.
Cavani suffered the misfortune of having to relinquish his No. 7 jersey at Manchester United when a certain Cristiano Ronaldo returned to his former stomping ground in August 2021, and thus reclaimed the number he had previously worn for the club over a decade earlier.
With his CR7 brand to maintain, Ronaldo assumed his familiar United No. 7 shirt after Cavani agreed to step aside and instead take the vacant No. 21 (previously worn by Daniel James). This was all despite Cavani having already worn the No. 7 on the pitch at the start of the season, just prior to Ronaldo’s prodigal return.
Sterling wasn’t the only Chelsea player to have his first-team credentials revoked by the club in August with Chalobah seeing his No. 14 removed in order to hand over to new João Félix, who returned to the club permanently after a six-month loan in 2023.
Chalobah represented the Blues since boyhood and has been a regular presence in the senior squad for a number of years. However, a relatively ambitious transfer valuation saw the centre-back unable to attract potential suitors over the summer and instead he was demoted and consigned to life in the development squad.
Much like Sterling, however, Chalobah was fortunate enough to wrangle an escape — if only temporarily — just before the deadline passed, joining Crystal Palace on a season-long loan.
After leading the line for Napoli in their historic Scudetto-winning season and proceeding to establish himself as one of European football’s most prolific and in-demand strikers, it was naturally assumed that a slew of big names would be lining up to sign the Nigeria international this summer.
Quite the opposite transpired, with a proposed big money transfers to Al Ahli and Chelsea falling through — a turn of events that led Napoli to take the tough decision to freeze Osimhen out of their Serie A squad, with the relationship between the two parties described as “broken.”
Just to rub it in, the Partenopei then went and gave their title-winning hero’s No. 9 shirt to new signing Romelu Lukaku, who will wear it for the remainder of the 2024-25 season.
With the transfer window shut across Europe’s major leagues, Osimhen is set to join Turkish club Galatasaray on loan.
Things rarely ran smooth for Martial at Manchester United, with the forward struggling to maintain form and/or fitness for any truly convincing length of time.
His brittle confidence must have surely taken a significant knock in the summer of 2016 when, after mustering just 11 league goals for the Premier League side, the 20-year-old Martial was forced to step aside to make room for a veteran of the European footballing landscape.
Sure enough, United had just managed to snare the signature of Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain with the swaggering Swede announcing his own arrival by posting a large image of his brand new No. 9 shirt on social media.
Zlatan went onto play a pivotal role in United’s run to the Europa League final and finished as the club’s top scorer in the Premier League with 17 goals, and amassed 28 goals in all competitions. By way of comparison, Martial pitched in with a paltry four league goals while finding himself being regularly shuttled in and out of Jose Mourinho’s starting line-up over the course of the campaign.
Having failed to fully convince the sceptics during his brief and indistinct run as Barcelona’s central striker, Memphis was nudged aside when Polish goal-scoring veteran and two-time European Golden Shoe winner Robert Lewandowski arrived from Bayern Munich ahead of the 2022-23 season.
Depay had been wearing the No. 9 shirt for Barca but it was decided that Lewandowski should be automatically handed the mantle after being installed as the Catalan’s new attacking talisman, while his new Dutch colleague was bumped down to No. 14 before being moved to Atlético Madrid just six months later.
After well and truly falling out of favour at Real Madrid, Bale was allowed to finish up his involvement with Wales at Euro 2020 before rejoining former club Tottenham Hotspur on loan for the 2020-21 season.
In his absence, Los Blancos wasted no time in stripping Bale of his No. 11 shirt at the Bernabeu and handing it to emerging talent Marco Asensio and latterly to Brazilian winger Rodrygo, as of the 2023-24 season following Asensio’s transfer to Paris Saint-Germain.
Bale was duly assigned the No. 18 shirt at Real Madrid in absentia, though he was never able to properly anoint it after making a meagre number of brief appearances for the Spanish giants upon his return for the 2021-22 campaign. He then finally called it quits and headed off to MLS with LAFC for one last swan song prior to his retirement.
