Man Utd Confirm Matheus Cunha’s Shirt Number

In partnership with

Sports Illustrated FC

·8 Juli 2025

Man Utd Confirm Matheus Cunha’s Shirt Number

Manchester United have revealed that summer signing Matheus Cunha will wear the No. 10 shirt for the club this season and beyond, which creates a somewhat awkward situation.

Cunha, the club’s only new arrival of the transfer window so far, has been handed the same shirt most recently occupied by Marcus Rashford.

Video OneFootball

Rashford is still under contract at Old Trafford but has been granted a delayed return to pre-season training to help secure a permanent transfer away. His shirt number being handed to Cunha is the clearest sign yet that Ruben Amorim does not consider the 27-year-old part of his plans.

Cunha also wore No. 10 on his back for Wolverhampton Wanderers last season, as well as for Hertha BSC earlier in his career. A less successful spell at Atlético Madrid came with nine and 19 shirts. Cunha typically wears 21 at international level for Brazil.

The 26-year-old is only the eighth Manchester United No. 10 since fixed squad numbers were introduced to the Premier League in 1993.

🔗 Instagram

Mark Hughes was the first, with David Beckham briefly wearing it for a single season in 1996–97 until No. 7 became available. Teddy Sheringham and Ruud van Nistelrooy successfully followed, before Wayne Rooney spent a full decade in the No. 10 shirt. Rashford inherited it in 2018 after Zlatan Ibrahimović had worn it for a handful of games during the 2017–18 campaign.

The shirt has rarely been vacant, unoccupied for a season in 1995–96 after Hughes was sold to Chelsea, and later not filled for a year when Van Nistelrooy joined Real Madrid in 2006.

United’s most legendary No. 10, before the Premier League era, is Denis Law. The late Old Trafford legend wore it more often than any other throughout his 11 years in red, winning the 1964 Ballon d’Or off the back of a club record 46-goal season.

Sir Bobby Charlton and George Best also wore the digits at various points in their respective careers, with Stan Pearson, Dennis Viollet, David Herd and Norman Whiteside among the other legends to wear it.