V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz completed a surprise transfer to Liverpool following a breakout season at Osasuna, a move that came despite Newcastle United being in pole position. Liverpool hijacked the deal for $46 million (\u20ac40 million), the club’s first official signing under new boss Andoni Iraola. Mu\u00f1oz will return from representing Spain at the 2026 World Cup and face the familiar challenges of a new country, league and team, and possibly a new shirt number.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1oz most recently wore 21 during his debut campaign with Osasuna. The 21 shirt is technically available at Liverpool after Konstantinos Tsimikas left it vacant when he joined Roma on loan. Tsimikas is expected to return to Merseyside, but his future in red remains uncertain. There is a reality in which he could be on his way out this summer, but reports suggest Tsimikas wants to stay and compete with Milos Kerkez for minutes in the final year of his contract. Should he get his wish, he could once again wear 21.<\/p>\n
At Real Madrid, Mu\u00f1oz has worn several numbers. He had brief first-team appearances wearing 44, which he only wore four times. He spent more time with Real Madrid Castilla wearing 23 and 9. The 23 shirt is available at Anfield after Luis D\u00edaz moved to Bayern Munich, while the 9 is currently owned by Alexander Isak.<\/p>\n
For Spain, the 22-year-old dons the 25 shirt, which belongs to Giorgi Mamardashvili at Liverpool. Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s choices were constrained by La Liga rules that require first-team players to wear numbers between 1 and 25; that restriction explains why players sometimes change numbers when they move between leagues. The winger\u2019s shirt decision at Liverpool will be resolved after his return and as the squad settles under Iraola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Munoz joins Liverpool from Osasuna; his likely shirt choices include 21, 23, 44 and Spain number 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,987],"tags":[1081,195,1615],"class_list":["post-15021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-real-madrid","tag-adaptation","tag-alexander-isak","tag-andoni-iraola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}