I am not going to continue with the debate (as much as I have enjoyed the discussion), because our disagreement is distracting from my point, made in the second paragraph of my previous post. The public association between shirt numbers and positions grew from practices of a prior generation now discontinued. I believe it has faded and will continue to fade with each passing generation.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. In Dutch football they use it continually as it is a position that is important in the tactics used by the Dutch. So no chance that it will be gone any time soon, unless there is another tactical system developed that is vastly superior of course.
Re: No.9 & the No.10 in football: [In nearly all versions of the "pyramid" form. the No.10 was the shirt worn by the inside-left and the No.9 was worn by the centre-forward. The No.10 then came to be worn by one of the two inside-forwards in the latter versions of the "W-M" form.]
You're sooo wrong about that, In Dutch soccer if you are the magic nr 10 you become a superstar legend. Van Hanegem, Litmanen, and abroad Zidane to name just 3 of them.
This discussion would be better if everyone had recently read: http://www.amazon.com/Inverting-Pyr...2041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337484530&sr=8-1 This is the only non-fiction book I re-read regularly. Fascinating every time and it always gives me something new to think about with regards to the team I am currently coaching or preparing to coach.
[The No.8 & the No.10 being worn by the I-Fs and the No.9 being worn by the C-F actually dates clear back to the "pyramid" formation even BEFORE the "W-M" was in common use in the game, mate.]
When I coached it was all about creating starters. The first 11 numbers were the starters. That is what the players all tried to become starters. Your a starter for a reason. Once you had your starters you tried the non starters pushed themselves to become a starter. Our number ten was overall best attacking player on the team. Our 11 was our striker 9 & 8 wing mids, 7 offensive mid, 6 defensive mid but they were interchangeable, 5 stopper a big player 4 & 3 were outside backs, 2 sweeper Keeper.
[This was definitely the case for the England NT team of the era because the ISC put the player's name on an official selection sheet and were assigned both the number and position for a given match...]
That's the problem with youth soccer in the US, you can't "create" starters, you get what you get based on tryouts or scouting, and you work the kids together. Having #10, or even any number from #1 to #11 means nothing when you get out on the field. Any team that has 30+ players, like the academy teams, has to recognize that those players who are #1 - #11 could get injured, even if they are indeed the starters, so you can't hang your hat on a number. When my kid goes pro, we'll see if he can earn the #10. Before then, it's ego massaging with no rationale.
I've gone over this before: The I-L/"No.10" in the western European version of the "pyramid" formation was almost always an out-&-out goal-scorer w/the ball-moving/"supply" roles being handled by the two wingers and the centre-forward/"No.9". In the "W-M" and it's variants the No.10 continued to be applied to the inside-left. The No.10/inside-left evolved into often being a more ball-moving, creative oriented player rather than an out-&-out goal-threat (as in the pyramid)...