The best players to wear No. 20 in MLS history

In the hierarchy of soccer jersey numbers, 20 is a bit of a leftover. It’s not a number that most players would choose; it’s one that they’d settle for after their top picks were already taken. 

In particular, strikers don’t have to settle for leftovers. They’re the stars of their teams. They get first shot at their preferred jersey number, and many often pick the striker shirt: No. 9.

American soccer, of course, often defies convention. The game here has never been all that bound to old-world traditions, which helps explain why two of the most accomplished male No. 9s in U.S. soccer history — Brian McBride and Taylor Twellman — spent their careers rocking No. 20. As if that wasn’t enough, U.S. women’s national team all-time leading scorer Abby Wambach also wore No. 20 throughout her career. 

The connection between McBride, now GM of the U.S. men’s national team, and Twellman, ESPN’s lead MLS and USMNT color commentator, stretches much deeper than their shared number, though. And it serves as an example of just how small the U.S. soccer universe can be. 

Twellman grew up in St. Louis as McBride was playing college soccer at Saint Louis University. McBride moved from his childhood home in the Chicago suburbs to St. Louis in 1990, the same year that Twellman was in the fifth grade class of a teacher named Mrs. Berwanger, who happened to be one of McBride’s mother’s closest friends. McBride would go to the Berwangers for a home-cooked meal every Sunday night of his freshman year at college. One weekend, she asked him to come in and speak to her class, which she said  included a couple of promising soccer players. 

“I’m like, ‘OK, fifth grade, and you already know that you possibly have some great soccer players?’ I’m thinking the parents are telling her, ‘Mrs. B, my kid’s really good,’ which you get all the time,” said McBride. “And so I went and spoke in the class, and not only was Taylor in there, but (Philadelphia Union assistant and former New England and USMNT midfielder) Pat Noonan was in there, too. How small of a world is that?”

That wasn’t the first time Twellman would be looking up to McBride. At that time, Twellman’s father Tim, a former NASL player, was a VP for Umbro, which supplied uniforms for the SLU soccer team. He took young Taylor to most of their home matches, where the developing striker watched McBride star for the Billikens. 

“I kind of grew up watching Brian,” said Twellman. “In my prime development stage, think of that, I’m in fifth and sixth grade and I’m going to all those college games and McBride’s coming up, I’m watching him, then years later I get to the national team and we’re teammates.” 

McBride was already set as a No. 20 by the time he got to SLU. He began wearing the number his freshman year at Buffalo Grove High School, when, as the youngest member of the varsity team, he had the last pick of shirts. (Author’s note: Buffalo Grove is in the same conference as my high school, Fremd, in Palatine, Ill. McBride and I grew up in neighboring towns. Like I said, U.S. soccer is a small world.) 

“I looked at the numbers that were left, 20 was one of them, and I just said, ‘You know what, 20 is twice as much as 10, so it’s twice as good as 10,’” said McBride. 

He stuck with it for the rest of his career, wearing it for SLU, who retired his jersey in 2002, the Columbus Crew, Fulham FC and the Chicago Fire. He had to battle former U.S. defender Paul Caligiuri for the shirt in Columbus ahead of MLS’s inaugural season in 1996, but he won out. He briefly wore No. 8 after he moved to Fulham in January 2004, but switched back to 20 ahead of the 2004-05 Premier League season, his first full campaign with the club. 

When he and Twellman were called to the same U.S. national team camps, McBride, being the more senior member, kept No. 20. On those occasions, Twellman would wear 13 or 15, the same number he wore as a youth international. The two strikers never did feature together for the U.S., something that still gnaws at Twellman to this day. 

“I just wish we would’ve seen it for like four or five games, just to see,” said Twellman, who earned 30 U.S. caps before concussions forced him to retire in 2010. “To have Landon (Donovan) run off of you, Eddie Lewis out wide, who knows how we would’ve done? I don’t know. We would’ve been good in the box, we would’ve gotten on the end of things, for sure.” 

Twellman’s path to No. 20 wasn’t anywhere near as straightforward as McBride’s. He grew up wearing No. 3 in honor of his grandfather Jim Delsing, who wore the number during his career as a Major League Baseball player in the 1940s and 50s. He switched to No. 33 when he moved to 1860 Munich after a couple of years at the University of Maryland, but only because the German club said No. 3 was inappropriate for a striker.

Late in 2001, Twellman decided he’d had enough of 1860 Munich. That fall, he got a call from LA Galaxy head coach Sigi Schmid, who had coached Twellman at the 1999 U-20 World Cup and helped orchestrate his initial move to Germany. Schmid had heard that Twellman was unhappy in Munich and offered him a contract to kickstart his career in LA. 

Twellman was in. The league, which Twellman had turned down before signing with 1860 Munich in 2000, was not. He said MLS blocked his move to LA, then later prevented him from signing with Kansas City. Instead of letting him join the team of his choosing, MLS forced Twellman, who had already been a pro for two years, into the college draft. 

“I was initially going to the Galaxy, the league said no, they then signed Carlos Ruiz. Then I was going to Kansas City, the league said no,” said Twellman. “I think the league was setting an example with me not signing a project-40 contract (out of college), so they forced me to go into the draft as a professional player. And so that was a little weird, right?” 

He planned to return to No. 3 when he left Germany to join MLS. Had he been able to sign where he initially wanted, he probably would’ve done just that. Instead, fate intervened to give him a number with significance beyond McBride. 

The Tampa Bay Mutiny initially held the first pick in the 2002 draft. Head coach Perry Van Der Beck, a Missouri native, knew of Twellman from St. Louis soccer circles and called the striker to let him know he planned to draft him first overall. Then, in January 2002, a month before the draft, the Mutiny folded. Dallas was allocated the first pick and took defender Chris Gbandi. New England, which was then coached by Fernando Claviijo, selected Twellman second overall. 

Clavijo, who had played against Twellman’s father in the old NASL, knew he was picking Taylor prior to the draft, and presented Twellman with a personalized Revs jersey after commissioner Don Garber announced the selection at the draft in Orlando. On the back? No. 20. 

Twellman was confused by the number. Turns out, his father had worn No. 20 when he played against Clavijo in NASL. Clavijo, who passed away last year, somehow remembered that fact, and figured Twellman might like to wear the same number as his dad. 

“And I’m like, ‘What?’ It’s very rare for them to give you a number at the draft, but Fernando literally had the number handy with him, he forced the Revs to take it to Florida for the draft,” said Twellman. “I remember he was just like, ‘Well, I know your dad wore it, so I just assumed you’d want this number.’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? I would love that.’ It was just kind of meant to be.”  

Small world, right? 

(Photo: Rick Stewart / Allsport via Getty Images)