Beto Everton shirt number revealed

Everton have announced the signing of centre-forward Beto from Udinese. The Portuguese-born forward is the Blues fifth signing of the summer transfer window, joining Ashley Young, Arnaut Danjuma, Youssef Chermiti and Jack Harrison.

Beto had spent most of his time playing in Portugal, coming up through URD Tires and then CO Montijo before making his move to Portimonense where he broke through in their Under-23 side, scoring 13 times in 22 games in the Liga Revelacao. He then made the move up to the senior side where he scored a further 13 goals, this time in 47 appearances.

That caught the eye of the conglomerate that owns Watford FC and Udinese, with the player joining the Italian side on loan for the 2021-22 season and scoring 11 times in 28 Serie A games. Udinese were only too happy to make that permanent the following season, paying a measly €7m to secure the player as he went on to score a further 10 goals across nearly 2,000 minutes of playing time in 34 appearances last season.

Beto has previously worn the #14 shirt at Portimonense and then the iconic #9 at Udinese, but with the latter being worn by Dominic Calvert-Lewin this season, the 25-year-old has chosen the vacant #14 shirt last worn by Andros Townsend in his two seasons with the Blues.

Before him, that squad number has been worn in royal blue by a couple of strikers in recent years, but Blues will be hoping that Beto fares better than a number of those players to have worn the shirt before him - Cenk Tosun (17/18 - 20/21), Yannick Bolasie (16/17), Oumar Niasse (15/16), Steven Naismith (12/13 - 15/16), James McFadden (11/12), James Vaughan (07/08 - 10/11), Kevin Kilbane (03/04 - 05/06), Idan Tal (01/02), Francis Jeffers (00/01), David Weir (99/00), Tony Grant (97/98 - 98/99), John Ebbrell (93/94 - 96/97), Iain Jenkins (91/92), Stuart Barlow (91/92 - 92/93), Robert Warzycha (91/92), Raymond Atteveld (91/92), Eddie Youds (90/91 - 91/92), Tony Cottee (90/91 - 91/92), Mike Milligan (90/91), Norman Whiteside (90/91), Kevin Sheedy (90/91), John Ebbrell (89/90), Raymond Atteveld (89/90), Mike Newell (89/90 - 91/92), Peter Beagrie (89/90 - 91/92), Stefan Rehn (89/90), Stuart McCall (88/89), Pat Nevin (88/89 - 91/92), Neil McDonald (88/89), Ian Wilson (87/88), Adrian Heath (87/88), Ian Marshall (87/88), Alan Harper (87/88), Neil Pointon (86/87), Paul Wilkinson (86/87), Warren Aspinall (86/87), Neil Adams (86/87), Kevin Richardson (84/85), Neil Robinson (78/79).

Transfermarkt has a comprehensive Everton’s squad number history here.