116: Ivan Zamorano, Chile, Panini World Cup France 98

This week sees another request post for Cesar and we return to Chile albeit at the other end of the pitch and with fewer armoured cars. That being said today’s subject was briefly the face of Santiago’s ambitious new transport venture which made the Elizabeth Line look like a successful timely project. Maybe the lesson here for any Chilean footballers is to stay away from vehicles and stick to mathematics. Hope this post does the trick Cesar. And for those of you eagerly awaiting request posts from aeons back they are coming in the near future. Honest.

The academic year has come to a close and I think it’s fair to say that, by July, staff and students are limping towards the finish line. Public exams are done, internal assessments are all marked and lessons are subject to a combination of school concert rehearsals, extracurricular trips and a fair few mysterious bouts of illness which coincide with cheaper international flights. The tried and tested response to this situation is to find a vaguely relevant film or documentary and chuck it on for the handful of students in front of you. For any parents feigning shock at the poor quality education being provided for your children this is more of a tradition than a cop out and those of us of an older vintage can probably remember the TV and VHS being wheeled into the classroom on such occasions.

To give my GCSE Maths teacher his due he was a stickler for academic rigour even if most of it went a long way over my head and he turned down my request for Christmas co-ordinates worksheets ahead of our mock exams. The problem was is that he had set a precedent the year before when, after our Year 10 assessments, he treated us to a phenomenally awful VHS which doesn’t appear to have even made it to YouTube. The imaginatively titled ‘Maths and Football’ was set in Australia and provided a range of scenarios where the trickiest of subjects could be made relatable through a tenuous link to the beautiful game. In one scene a group of lads settling down to watch a match entered into a fierce debate over who was the best player of all time foreshadowing the invention of social media by a good five years. Rather than engaging in flame wars with a group of FIFA obsessed teenagers they decided to settle their dispute by making some bar charts. The piece de resistance, however, involved some deeply concerned footballers asking their manager “how are we gonna beat those Italians?” Rather than suggesting some Kevin Muscat levels of violence the man in charge mooted the use of angles. “Angles? How’s that gonna work?” “I’ll show ya!” Clearly no one gave Raymond Domenech or Gareth Southgate the idea of pinging the ball around at 45 degrees in the summers of 2006 and 2021.

Whether the stars of ‘Maths and Football’ later resorted to an in depth discussion of their squad numbers’ need to follow the Fibonacci sequence remains a mystery but the use of maths to settle such issues has featured in the professional game. For a variety of reasons the holy trinity of 7, 9 and 10 have been highly sought after and have become synonymous with certain stars. When these are not available for incoming stars things can get tricky. Paulo Futre famously stormed out of West Ham United’s dressing room ahead upon learning he would be wearing 16 instead of 10 but others have chosen to be more creative. Hibernian’s Derek Riordan settled on 01 when his favoured number was occupied clearly in hope that the Easter Road faithful would watch most of their games in a mirror. At Real Madrid Cristiano ‘CR7’ Ronaldo found his preferred shirt number occupied by Raul and took on the number 9 which was all well and good until Emmanuel Adebayor turned up on loan. The Togolese settled with the number 6 for the sole pleasure of any bats at the Bernabeu. Others got more mathematical. Mario Balotelli settled on 45 early in his Inter Milan career as it was as close to the mythical number 9 as he could get. At the same club nearly a decade earlier another striker had a similar idea.

Ivan Zamorano arrived in Milan ahead of the 1996/97 season after an astonishing 101 goals in 173 appearances for Real Madrid and was understandably tasked with leading the Nerazzurri’s line. Wearing the number 9 jersey he scored fourteen goals in 48 appearances, including the equaliser in the UEFA Cup final, as the club finished third in Serie A and reached the semi-finals of the Coppa Italia. Clearly feeling the need to boost their firepower Inter splashed the cash to bring twenty-year-old Brazilian phenomenon Ronaldo to the San Siro. His 34 goals announced him on the world stage ahead of the 1998 World Cup in France and his heroics for his country saw the birth of a global ‘R9’ brand with a lucrative Nike sponsorship deal. Slightly awkward considering he wore the number 10 jersey during his debut campaign at Inter while Zamorano retained number 9. To further complicate things Inter decided to bring in Roberto Baggio ahead of the 1998/99 season with a caveat that he take the number 10 shirt he had famously made his own with Juventus, Italy and Bologna. Ronaldo was shunted to his preferred number 9 leaving Zamorano with the less auspicious number 18. Not wanting to be sidelined in this way the Chilean insisted on the addition of…an addition symbol meaning he was actually wearing number 1+8 and therefore, technically, number 9. 

With Inter’s actual number 9 showcasing what would become a career trait of injury limiting his game time Zamorano played a greater role in the 1998/99 campaign and scored fourteen goals in all competitions. He managed only three strikes in the following season, however, and moved to Mexican side Club America in 2001 where he bagged eleven goals in seventeen appearances in his favoured number 9 jersey. He picked up a Mexican Primera Division winner’s medal the following season before finishing his club career in his native Chile with Colo Colo in 2003. Across an eighteen-year career he scored 349 goals in 621 appearances for clubs in Chile, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Mexico and rightly earned a reputation as one of South America’s most gifted forwards. On the international stage he won 69 caps and scored 34 goals as Chile won an Olympic bronze medal in 2000 and finished fourth in the 1999 Copa America.

Zamorano’s impact on the game clearly went beyond his impressive on field achievements. When Ade Akinbiyi arrived at Crystal Palace and found Clinton Morrison donning the coveted number 10 shirt he opted for 5+5. We’ll ignore the fact that the Irish striker outscored his new teammate by 24 goals to two in their sole season together in the debate over who was most deserving of said shirt. Had Zamorano stuck to his initial shirt number at Inter he may well have faded into obscurity in the face of the outrageous array of attacking talent arriving at the San Siro but his bold choices, along with some simple mathematics, allowed him to carve out a cult hero status in Milan and around the footballing world. Maths and football? How’s that gonna work? Ivan ‘Bam Bam’ Zamorano’ll show ya.