A little background: FIFA instituted a new rule for the 2010 qualifying campaign that states players may only wear numbers 1-18 during a qualifier. We suppose that wouldn't be a huge issue if you only had 18 players in a camp for every game (although sizes can be a challenge), but what happens when you have 19 players? 23 players? And what happens when the roster changes for games that are four days apart? What happens when a player gets hurt? And what happens if you are a team like the United States that puts the players' names on every jersey? Do we see human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria? (Couldn't resist the old movie quote, folks. What can we say - it's a habit...)
Well, we'll tell you what happens with the U.S. team. Mr. Tim Cook, our team equipment manager, travels with a boatload of extra jerseys, numbers, letters, a 100-pound heat press, and an alarm clock (in case he falls asleep in the middle of the night while printing). Once the 18-man roster has been decided - usually the night before the game - Tim sets about applying names, numbers and the official World Cup qualifying patch to the uniforms. Now don't get us wrong - many uniforms can be printed in advance, but the possibility of changes requires that he prepared to do a lot of printing. And as you can see, he's got a long night ahead of him...
Did we mention each player needs two jerseys per game?
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3 comments:
wow. who knew?
Does this mean that Orozco (3) is starting in the back in Trinidad?
We suppose that wouldn't be a huge issue if you only had 18 players in a camp for every game (although sizes can be a challenge), but what happens when you have 19 players? 23 players?
You can only have 18 players in uniform for a World Cup qualifier (23 for the finals).
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