Manchester United officially announced the arrival of Nemanja Matic from Chelsea today, and his new number, #31, was pervasive in announcement imagery. United Manager Jose Mourinho mentioned the number in his statement, and the club’s official Twitter account put the numerals front and center as well in their Tweets.
Maybe there’s not really much to be read into that. On the other hand, perhaps there is a deeper meaning.
A big welcome to our new no.31… #MaticIsRed pic.twitter.com/Mo1TM9gb26
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 31, 2017
United also retweeted this tweet from Adidas linked here.
The #31 was left vacant when the previous incumbent, another midfielder in Bastian Schweinsteiger, was sold to Chicago Fire in March.
Schweinsteiger is currently captaining the MLS All-Stars this week, who will take on Real Madrid Wednesday night in Chicago in the MLS All-Star game. Schweinsteiger’s current team, the Fire, are hosting the event.
Schweinsteiger is currently captaining the MLS All-Stars who will face Real Madrid in the MLS All-Star game Wednesday in Chicago. His first media opportunity of MLS All-Star Game event week will be later today, or perhaps tomorrow instead. It will be interesting to potentially get his take on Nemanja Matic, and the idea of the Serbian midfielder now filling his shirt number, the same number he now wears for Chicago Fire.
Yesterday, at a beach party that kicked off MLS All-Star week in Chicago, former Fire and United States National Team star Brian McBride met with the media and fans. In a small group interview session, following a media beach friendly, McBride said this about Schweinsteiger moving to MLS and joining his former team:
“If you look at it, when Schweinsteiger signed, people were questioning it, and you can see the difference it makes when you have someone can pick out passer and see routes. I’d be interested to see a stat on how many times (Fire striker and MLS leading scorer Nemanja) Nikolic was offside before Schweinsteiger came and now how many times he’s not, after Schweinsteiger came.”
“Because he’s making the same runs, and had the same vision, it’s just that the pass didn’t come soon enough. Now you have Dax sitting in the whole freeing up Bastian Schweinsteiger to be a little bit more offensive, so it’s all mixed, very very well.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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