Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar recalled the story behind the way he was given Brazil’s number ten shirt.
He explained how he couldn’t wear his first two choices of numbers, and ended up with Pele’s famous number on the back of the shirt.
“Robinho was always my biggest idol and therefore at Santos I wanted to play with the number seven and started using it,” he told UOL Esporte.
“Then Robinho came back and I had to respect him, so I took 11, which was the second option I liked the most.
“Before the Confederations Cup, [Luiz Felipe] Scolari was distributing the numbers and I told him that I liked 7 and 11.
“Dani Alves, however, looked at me and said: ‘You are the ten, put it on. You have to use it’.”
While at Barcelona Neymar was wearing number 11, but upon his arrival at PSG he returned to the one he uses for the Selecao.