“All is fair in love and war” , they say many times, but in football the question is different. To cling on to a slender lead or to drag your opponents for a boring draw a coach usually finds any option available and Brazilian Football club Uniao Barbarense has taken it to a new level. They took up a route that was not exactly within the rules. To everyone’s amusement, two of Uniao Barbarense’s midfielders wore the same number in their jersey to try and trick the opposition and the referee.
No, it was an error of props. During the first half of the match between Barbarense and Linense in the Paulista Championship , midfielder Claudio Britto ported its traditional number 7 on the back. The strange thing is that for the complement, the player jumped onto the field with the shirt number 5 also was wearing his original owner, defender Rafael Silva .
What surprised Linense and their fans was not the fact that two players have the same shirt, but had spent 26 minutes until the referee realized the deception. Once the referee noticed the tactic Barbarense were deploying, Britto was immediately called and showed a yellow card, and asked to change his shirt. Curiously, the midfielder returned to the field wearing a new shirt, this time with the number 17 on the back.
This stunt by the club said that they had the advantage in the match and wanted to throw off their opponents within the field. The player himself admitted that they found the trick: ” We were attacking and tried every trick to contain them. It was our strategy and it worked “Britto said this during the post match interview. The match ended with a scoreline of 3-2 in favour of Barbarense.
It was so with a trick that recalled the style of Don Nacho Trelles , the Brazilian club got a win in Serie A2 carioca football.