According to the Confederations Cup regulations, "The numbers 1, 12 and 23 shall be allocated to the goalkeepers". Seeing that one of those numbers is not 18, which will he be wearing
Those regulations are crap. Anyone should be able to wear any number that they please. Also, in the World Cup I think it was 1, 18, and 19 for goalkeepers. Some things just don't make sense.
According to fifa, Howard will wear 18, Hahneman 19, and Cannon 1. The players get to pick their numbers based on seniority. I suspect Tim chose 18 over 1. For more details, see: http://www.fifa.com/en/comp/event/teams/roster,1045,2003,usa,b.html
I believe the only real rule is that the #1 has to be worn by a goalkeeper. France and Colombia are also breaking this supposed rule. I don't think FIFA places a huge importance on what number a goalkeeper wears as long as a GK has the 1 shirt.
I like having player number restrictions. Nothing is worse than seeing some jackarse hearing number 66 or something. I realize this is different for international play where teams can only wear 1-23, but still... Howard should wear 18.
Yep. Colombia has a keeper wearing 22 and France has Barthez, whose preferred number has always been 16. The 5 other teams are following the 1-12-23 convention. And it was even more liberal in the 70s, when you had Ossie Ardiles wearing #1 for Argentina and Netherlands had a keeper wearing #8.