Trent Alexander-Arnold has been forced to change from his iconic No.66 following his move to Real Madrid.
Alexander-Arnold was officially unveiled as Madrid’s latest Galactico with the number 12 shirt in a presentation on Thursday.
Alexander-Arnold is now officially a Madrid playerGettyThe 26-year-old has now left Liverpool after two decades at the club for a new chapter with the Spanish giants.
Madrid have forked out around £10million to get him slightly before the end of his contract, which was June 30.
The England star stunned supporters, and apparently even Los Blancos president Florentino Perez, by delivering his opening speech in near-perfect Spanish.
He was then presented with his Madrid shirt, which instead of having Alexander-Arnold on the back, just had ‘Trent’.
However, that wasn’t the only thing that may have surprised fans, with the right-back also now going by the No.12 shirt.
Why did Trent give up No.66?
The right-back was forced into switching from the No.66 shirt, which he has worn for nearly his entire professional club career.
Having made his senior debut as Liverpool’s No.2 in a pre-season friendly against Swindon Town in 2015, Trent took ownership of the No.66 in his next appearance and retained it for the rest of his time at Anfield.
It became an iconic Liverpool strip over the years, with Alexander-Arnold starring while winning two Premier League titles and a Champions League wearing the digits.
But LaLiga rules state that all players must wear a number between 1-25, which ruled Trent’s 66 out of the parameters.
That matches up to the maximum squad size of players registered during a domestic campaign.
Alexander-Arnold wore 66 for almost his entire Liverpool careerGettyIt’s a rule that has seen Barcelona unable to retire the No.10 shirt for Lionel Messi and Real not allowed to retire No.7 for Cristiano Ronaldo.
The strictness surrounding those numbers having to be used and available for the 25 registered squad players will see Alexander-Arnold have no choice.
On top of that rule, Real Madrid also seem to have a club-specific condition made by president Florentino Perez.
And that could well have been what forced Jude Bellingham to move from his No.22 to No.5 at Los Blancos.
Real legend Zinedine Zidane revealed that Perez doesn’t like players wearing high numbers and that he prefers 1-11 on the pitch.
Zidane said: “I picked the number five shirt because he [Perez] didn’t want me to have 25, 30, 35. He said ‘this is not football, this is American football’ so in the end I got five.”
Bellingham inherited Zidane’s No.5 shirt at Madrid, changing from No.22GettySo, even if LaLiga rules allowed the use of No.66 in the league, Alexander-Arnold would have likely been asked to change anyways.
Trent has worn multiple different numbers on the back of his kit for England, including 2, 7, 8 and 10.
All of these were unavailable at Madrid, leading the No.12 to be the highest vacant number that he could choose.
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