Football Daily | ‘Where the hell is Roy Keane!’ Fifty shades of great football debate

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Forget about Michael Carrick. Don’t dwell on Women’s Bigger Cup. Fret not about Pierre Sage. No, the big football story of the day is Big Website’s Ultimate 1-50 , a rundown of the male footballers best associated with each squad number. It’s lighthearted reading designed to entertain, maybe even inform, and perhaps spark a few memories and a touch of debate. Or, if you prefer, a rage-bait waste of time that shames the internet. Where the hell is Roy Keane! How dare you leave out Bobby Moore! And Pelé? A list without Pelé? I don’t want to live in a world where there are lists without Pelé. Such is the world these days, though surely a certain amount of respect is due to an exercise that shuns Lionel Messi and Zinedine Zidane but can welcome in Salvatore Sirigu and Mateusz Klich.

And true, it might be a challenging read for those (and, let’s be clear, we’re absolutely definitely not referring to ourselves here, no sirree) old enough to have been brought up in an era of 1; 2, 5, 6, 3; 7, 4, 8, 11; 9 (big man), 10 (little man). The days of two substitutes who wore Nos 12 and 14. The days of a quarter of wine gums in your pocket and misty rain drifting across the floodlights and … oh my god Asamoah Gyan is wearing No 3 and playing up front. This is not a drill. Repeat this is not a drill. Burn it all down, the game’s gone. There is something about it all that does invoke strangely strong reactions, but every day is a school day. So, yes, there remains a hallowed aura around 1-11 but even some of the game’s greats – we’re looking at you Gerd Müller and Johan Cruyff – are best associated with numbers outside of the traditional undectet. And, as Jonathan Wilson brilliantly illustrates here , there’s a risk of being a bit…