In Zurich, where FIFA’s museum has spent a decade collecting the game’s memories, Brazil’s most famous No. 10s now share a digital stage. Pelé and Marta are among 10 players celebrated in a new online exhibition marking the institution’s tenth anniversary.
Named The 10 Magicians: Legends of the Beautiful Game, the free exhibition follows the history of the shirt number that has come to represent imagination, authority and footballing distinction across generations. It brings together photographs, video material and objects from the FIFA Museum collection.
Marta’s place in Brazil’s No. 10 tradition
Marta is the latest figure added to the project, with her chapter tracing a career that reshaped expectations around the women’s game as well as her long association with Brazil’s No. 10 shirt.
The display includes the Brazil jersey she wore at the London 2012 Olympic Games and the boots used during the 2019 Women’s World Cup. In reflecting on the progress of women’s football, Marta said she had grown up without a female football idol, whereas today’s players have “our own references”.
She also spoke emotionally about Brazil hosting the Women’s World Cup, saying the women’s game deserved that recognition.
Pelé and eight more icons
Pelé receives his own chapter, focused on the influence he exerted both on the pitch and beyond it. The No. 10 became inseparable from his image with Brazil, and his legacy remains central to the number’s global mythology.
Alongside Pelé and Marta, eight further players from different eras are featured in the anniversary project. Each profile examines how its subject helped give lasting meaning to football’s most celebrated squad number.
Founded in 2016 to preserve and tell the sport’s history, the FIFA Museum has made the exhibition available online without charge as part of its ten-year celebrations.
