Breaking the Curse: Chelsea Ace Alvaro Morata Talks About Taking Down No. 9 Shirt Hoodoo

When Alvaro Morata joined Chelsea this summer, in a staggering £75m move from Real Madrid, he chose to wear the tempting, yet dangerous number nine jersey against everyone's advice.

A few players in the history of the Blues wore the jersey without being affected by its alleged curse, the most recent one being Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who was an extremely prolific goalscorer between 2000-2004. 

However, many others were indeed affected by the burden of wearing the number nine jersey, and failed to find the net as often as it would be expected from someone in their role. These were, among others, Mateja Kezman, Khalid Boulahrouz, Steve Sidwell, Franco Di Santo, Fernando Torres and Radamel Falcao, all who struggled in their years at Stamford Bridge.

But in July, Alvaro Morata was not worried by the jersey's bad influence and chose to tempt face when asked to choose a number.  

He told FourFourTwo: “That was one of the first things I was told after turning up here. Even the lads were begging me not to take that shirt because it was cursed, but I wanted it."

The Spaniard had previously worn a number nine jersey during his two years at Juventus, his initial seasons with Real Madrid's youth squad and, for a while, also with his national team.

The success he found by wearing the number in the past should be enough to defeat the hoodoo at Chelsea, but Morata preferred to be 100% certain: “I’ve done a couple of little things to avoid the bad luck that the shirt supposedly brings. Can I tell you what I’ve done? No chance. If I did that, the curse will come back!”

The Blues striker has scored six goals and provided three assists in his nine Premier League appearances so far: whatever he's done to avoid bad luck, it must have worked.