Who wore number 23 in football?

The last World Cup squad number these days. #23 was famously chosen by David Beckham when he went to Real Madrid to honor Michael Jordan (7 at Real was taken by Mr. Madrid, Raul). Because of Beckham and Jordan this is now a very popular number.

David Beckham

David Robert Joseph Beckham OBE is an English former professional footballer, also known as the president & co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. He played for Manchester United, Preston North End (on loan), Real Madrid, AC Milan (on loan), LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and the England national team, for which he held the appearance record for an outfield player until 2016. He is the first English player to win league titles in four countries: England, Spain, the United States and France. He retired in May 2013 after a 20-year career, during which he won 19 major trophies.

Beckham’s professional club career began with Manchester United, where he made his first-team debut in 1992 at age 17. With United, he won the Premier League title six times, the FA Cup twice, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He then played four seasons with Real Madrid, winning the La Liga championship in his final season with the club. In July 2007, Beckham signed a five-year contract with Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy. While a Galaxy player, he spent two loan spells in Italy with Milan in 2009 and 2010. He was the first British footballer to play 100 UEFA Champions League games.

In international football, Beckham made his England debut on 1 September 1996 at the age of 21. He was captain for six years, earning 58 caps during his tenure. He made 115 career appearances in total, appearing at three FIFA World Cup tournaments, in 1998, 2002 and 2006, and two UEFA European Championship tournaments, in 2000 and 2004.

Known for his range of passing, crossing ability and bending free-kicks as a right winger, Beckham has been hailed as one of the greatest and most recognisable midfielders of his generation, as well as one of the best set-piece specialists of all time. He was runner-up in the Ballon d’Or in 1999, twice runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year and in 2004 was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world’s greatest living players. He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Premier League Hall of Fame on 20 May 2021. A global ambassador of the sport, Beckham is regarded as a British cultural icon.

Beckham has consistently ranked among the highest earners in football, and in 2013 was listed as the highest-paid player in the world, having earned over $50 million in the previous 12 months. He has been married to Victoria Beckham since 1999 and they have four children. He has been a UNICEF UK ambassador since 2005, and in 2015 he launched 7: The David Beckham UNICEF Fund. In 2014, MLS announced that Beckham and a group of investors would own Inter Miami CF, which began play in 2020.

Jamie Carragher

James Lee Duncan Carragher is an English football pundit and former footballer who played as a defender for Premier League club Liverpool during a career which spanned 17 years. A one-club man, he was Liverpool’s vice-captain for 10 years, and is one of the club’s longest serving players, making his 737th appearance for Liverpool in all competitions on 19 May 2013.

Carragher started his career at the Liverpool Academy, making his professional debut in the 1996–97 season, and becoming a first team regular the following season. Having initially played as a full-back, the arrival of manager Rafael Benítez in 2004 saw Carragher move to become a centre-back, where he found his best form. His honours with Liverpool total two FA Cups, three League Cups, two Community Shields, one Champions League, one UEFA Cup, and two Super Cups.

Internationally, Carragher held the national record for most caps at under-21 level and earned his senior debut in 1999. He represented England at UEFA Euro 2004 and the 2006 FIFA World Cup, before announcing his retirement from international football in 2007. He did, however, temporarily come out of retirement in order to represent England at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, before retiring again with 38 senior England caps.

Following his retirement in 2013 Carragher joined Sky Sports as a commentator and pundit. In July 2020, CBS Sports announced Carragher would join their Champions League studio broadcast team.

Christian Eriksen

Christian Dannemann Eriksen is a Danish professional footballer known as an attacking midfielder for Serie A club Inter Milan and the Denmark national team. Eriksen is also capable of playing as a central midfielder or mezzala in a 4–3–3 system.

Eriksen started his career at Dutch side Ajax, where he won the Eredivisie in 2010–11, 2011–12, and 2012–13, and established himself to comparisons with Michael Laudrup for his traditional number 10 role. In 2014, Eriksen joined Tottenham and was named the club’s Player of the Year in his debut season. During his seven years at the club, he was also named the club’s Player of the Year in the 2016–17 season and was included in the 2017–18 PFA Team of the Year. In the 2018–19 season, Eriksen became one of the few players to record over 10 assists in four successive Premier League seasons, and was a key member of the side that reached the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final. In January 2020, he signed with Italian side Inter Milan.

Eriksen has been named the Danish Football Player of the Year multiple times. He made his international debut for Denmark in March 2010, and was the youngest player of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In the build-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Eriksen played a key role during the nation’s qualification campaign. Denmark reached the round of 16, where they were defeated by Croatia after a penalty shoot-out. In Denmark’s opening game against Finland at Euro 2020, Eriksen collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest. He was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the pitch, and taken to hospital. He was discharged six days later, having been fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator device.

Andrei Arshavin

Andrey Sergeyevich Arshavin is a Russian former professional footballer who played as a forward or midfielder.

Arshavin began his career at Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2000. He went on to win numerous trophies with the club such as the Russian Premier League, League Cup, Russian Super Cup, UEFA Cup and the UEFA Super Cup. During his time with Zenit, Arshavin was also named as the Russian Footballer of the Year.

He then had a breakout performance at UEFA Euro 2008 where he impressed throughout Russia’s run to the semi-final of the tournament. Arshavin thereafter signed for English Premier League club Arsenal during the 2008–09 winter transfer window, becoming the most expensive player in Arsenal’s history at the time, with a fee of £15 million. Arshavin eventually rejoined Zenit, at first on loan and then permanently in 2013.

Sol Campbell

Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell is an English former football player, also known as the manager of National League club Southend United. He previously managed Macclesfield Town from November 2018 to August 2019. A centre back, he had a 20-year career playing in the Premier League and an 11-year international career with the England national team.

Born in east London to Jamaican parents, Campbell began his career with Tottenham Hotspur in December 1992. He spent nine years at Spurs, scoring 10 goals in 255 appearances, and captaining the team to victory in the 1999 Football League Cup Final against Leicester City. In 2001, he joined Tottenham’s North London rivals Arsenal on a free transfer, and as a result has remained a deeply unpopular figure amongst Spurs supporters. In his five years and 195 appearances at Arsenal, he won two Premier League winners medals and two FA Cup winners medals, encompassing the 2001–02 league and FA Cup double, and being part of the team that became known as The Invincibles for their undefeated 2003–04 Premier League campaign. He scored Arsenal’s only goal in their 2–1 defeat to Barcelona in the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final.

In August 2006, he joined Portsmouth on a free transfer. His three years with the club included captaining them to victory in the 2008 FA Cup Final. At the end of the 2008–09 season, he made the surprise move of dropping down three levels of the English football pyramid to join League Two side Notts County on a free transfer. He left the club by mutual consent in September 2009, having played just one match for the club. The next year, he made a brief return to Arsenal before ending his career with Newcastle United.

Having already won caps for the England under-21s and England B team, Campbell gained his first of 73 full caps for England aged 21. In May 1998, Campbell became what was then England’s second-youngest captain, after Bobby Moore, aged 23 years 248 days. In 2006, he became the first player to have represented England in six consecutive major tournaments, playing in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 UEFA European Championships; and the 1998, 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cups. He was named in the Teams of the Tournament for the 2002 World Cup and at Euro 2004. Other honours in the game include being in the PFA Team of the Year three times, in 1999, 2003 and 2004.

In February 2015, Campbell announced his ambition to be the Conservative Party candidate for Mayor of London in the 2016 election, but he was not shortlisted.

Marco Materazzi

Marco Materazzi Ufficiale OMRI is an Italian former professional footballer and manager.

Early in his career, Materazzi played with various Italian teams in Serie B and Serie C, and with Everton in the Premier League. He spent two periods with Perugia (1995–98 and 1999–2001) and signed for Inter Milan in 2001 for €10 million. At club level, he won a number of major honors with Inter, including five Serie A league titles in a row from 2006 to 2010, one UEFA Champions League, one FIFA Club World Cup, four Coppa Italia titles, and the Supercoppa Italiana four times.

Materazzi earned 41 caps for Italy from his debut in 2001 until 2008, playing in two World Cups and two European Championships. He was one of the key players in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final against France; he gave away an early penalty that led to France’s first goal, scored Italy’s equalising goal twelve minutes later and, in extra time, received a headbutt from Zinedine Zidane who was punished with a red card. Italy then went on to win the World Cup in a penalty shoot-out, during which Materazzi scored again.

A controversial and provocative figure in football, he was known for his very physical and aggressive style of defending, which saw him collect numerous cards throughout his career.

Marc-Vivien Foé

Marc-Vivien Foé was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a defensive midfielder for both club and country. Foé had success in France’s Division 1 and England’s Premier League, before his sudden death, due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, during an international match, an event which shocked the football community worldwide. He was posthumously decorated with the Commander of the National Order of Valour and had his shirt number 23 retired by Manchester City.

Daniel Sturridge

Daniel Andre Sturridge is an English professional footballer who is mainly characterized as a striker. As well as representing England, he has played in the Premier League for Manchester City, Chelsea, Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion, and he has also played for Turkish Süper Lig club Trabzonspor.

Sturridge spent four years in the Aston Villa academy before moving to Coventry City. He then signed for Manchester City in 2003. He continued his development at City and played in two FA Youth Cup finals. He made his first-team debut in the 2007–08 season, becoming the first player ever to score in the FA Youth Cup, FA Cup and Premier League in the same season. He left City in 2009 and signed for Chelsea, where he was loaned out to Bolton Wanderers for the second half of the 2010–11 season. After a successful spell at Bolton, scoring eight goals in 12 appearances, he returned to Chelsea for the 2011–12 season.

He left Chelsea to join Liverpool in January 2013, where he formed an attacking partnership with Luis Suárez dubbed ‘SAS’. Liverpool scored more than 100 league goals in the 2013–14 season with Sturridge scoring 21 goals, behind only Suárez with 34. The following two seasons were curtailed by a myriad of injuries, limiting Sturridge to very few appearances. During those years, he scored the opening goal in the 2016 Europa League final, although Liverpool eventually lost the game to Sevilla.

He featured most often as a substitute in the next seasons under manager Jürgen Klopp, but was part of the UEFA Champions League-winning squad in 2019. Released days later, he signed for Turkish Süper Lig club Trabzonspor, where his contract was terminated in March 2020 shortly before receiving a four-month worldwide ban for breaching betting rules. Sturridge has represented England at all levels. He made 15 appearances and scored four goals for the under-21 team. He made his debut for England against Sweden on 15 November 2011 and was selected for the 2012 Summer Olympics, the 2014 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2016.

Séamus Coleman

Séamus Coleman is an Irish professional footballer known as a right-back and captain of both Premier League club Everton and the Republic of Ireland national team.

Originally a Gaelic footballer, Coleman started his association football career with St Catherine’s in Killybegs. He joined League of Ireland side Sligo Rovers in 2006 after impressing in a friendly against them. He then made the move to England to sign for Everton in January 2009 for a £60,000 fee. In 2010, he spent half a season on loan with Blackpool, helping them win promotion via the Championship play-offs, before returning to Everton.

Coleman has been a senior international for the Republic of Ireland since 2011. He won the 2011 Nations Cup and was awarded the FAI Under-21 International Player of the Year in both 2009 and 2010. He was selected for the Ireland squad at UEFA Euro 2016, captaining Ireland against both Italy and France. He was named the new Ireland captain in September 2016 following Robbie Keane’s international retirement.

Jonny Evans

Jonathan Grant Evans is a Northern Irish professional footballer known as a defender for Premier League club Leicester City and the Northern Ireland national team.

Evans was born in Belfast and started his career at Greenisland FC, where he was spotted by Manchester United scouts. He progressed through Manchester United’s academy and went on loan to Royal Antwerp and Sunderland to gain first-team experience before making his Manchester United first team debut in the 2007–08 League Cup. He became a regular first-team squad member the following season, and played almost 200 matches for Manchester United in an eight-year spell; however, he fell out of favour at the club under manager Louis van Gaal and left for West Bromwich Albion. When West Brom were relegated three years later, Evans signed for Leicester City.

Evans is one of the most decorated players in Northern Irish football history.

Emre Can

Emre Can is a German professional footballer known as a central midfielder for Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund and the Germany national team. A versatile player, Can has also played as a defensive midfielder, centre-back and full-back.

He began his senior career at Bayern Munich, playing mostly in the club’s reserve side before transferring to Bayer Leverkusen in 2013. A season later, he was signed by Liverpool for £9.75 million where he made over 150 appearances across all competitions before joining Juventus in 2018. In 2020 he joined Borussia Dortmund, initially on a loan before moving on a permanent deal a few weeks later.

Can represented Germany from Under-15 to Under-21 level, and featured at the 2015 Under-21 European Championship. He made his senior debut in September 2015 and was selected for the 2016 European Championship. The following year, he was part of the German squad which won the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia, and also scored his first senior international goal.

Luke Shaw

Luke Paul Hoare Shaw is an English professional footballer known as a left-back for Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team.

Originally a member of Southampton’s youth system, Shaw made his first-team debut for the club in January 2012, and signed his first professional contract in May that year before becoming a regular in the Southampton team over the next two seasons. In June 2014, Shaw was signed by Manchester United for £30 million, then a world record transfer fee for a teenager.

Shaw made his senior international debut for England in March 2014 in a 1–0 friendly win against Denmark, and later that year was selected in the squad for the FIFA World Cup. He scored his first international goal in the UEFA Euro 2020 Final, which was also one of the fastest scored in a UEFA European Championship final and the tournament’s history.

Carlo Cudicini

Carlo Cudicini is a retired Italian footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is the son of the former Milan goalkeeper Fabio Cudicini, and the grandson of Ponziana defender Guglielmo Cudicini. Cudicini is also known as a club ambassador and loan player technical coach at Chelsea.

Cudicini started his professional career at Serie A side Milan in 1992, but struggled to break into the first team and was loaned to Como before moving to Prato and then Lazio in 1996. Having only made a single league appearance for Lazio, he moved a year later to Castel di Sangro and then to Premier League side Chelsea in 1999, initially on loan. He dislodged Ed de Goey from the number one spot and was voted Chelsea’s Player of the Year for the 2001–02 season and remained first choice until Petr Čech was signed in 2004. Cudicini left Chelsea in January 2009, having made 141 league appearances for the club, and joined local rivals Tottenham Hotspur. At Tottenham, he remained second- or third-choice throughout his spell, and only made 19 league appearances for the club. In 2013, Cudicini signed for Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer, where he played the final season of his career.

Cudicini played 20 times for the Italy under-18 team between 1990 and 1992, and made a single appearance for the under-21 team, but never played for the senior team. In 2003, during his successful period at Chelsea, The Football Association attempted to select him for the England national team, but he was ineligible.

Robbie Fowler

Robert Bernard Fowler is an English football manager and former footballer who also managed East Bengal in the Indian Super League.

As a player he was a striker in a playing career which spanned between 1993 and 2012, Fowler was known for being a natural scorer with an instinctive goal-poaching ability. Fowler is best remembered for his tenure at Liverpool and is one of the highest goalscorers in the history of the Premier League. He scored 183 goals in total for Liverpool, 120 of which were scored in the top tier. He earned the nickname “God” from the Anfield crowd, becoming a club legend due to his finishing.

He subsequently played for Leeds United and Manchester City, before returning to Liverpool in January 2006. He relocated to Cardiff City eighteen months later. He played there for a year before transferring to Blackburn Rovers on a short-term deal. In December 2008, he departed Blackburn and forged a career in Australia with North Queensland Fury and Perth Glory. In 2011, he joined Thai side Muangthong United as a player, but later was appointed player-manager which he remained until his retirement in 2012.

He was capped for England 26 times, scoring 7 goals. Fowler was included in England’s squads for Euro 1996, Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup. Socially aware, Fowler showed support for the Liverpool dockers’ strike during a goal celebration in 1997 where he unveiled a t-shirt which incorporated the Calvin Klein “CK” into the word doCKer.