NBA
The misspelling on Wembanyama’s jersey with the Spurs in their game against the Warriors
The San Antonio Spurs forward didn’t realize right away that his name on the back of his jersey had been misspelled: “It was a real shame”.
He’s affectionately known as Wemby for a good reason - some people understandably find Victor Wembanyama’s surname a bit of a mouthful, and Wemby requires a lot less effort. But the San Antonio Spurs forward, the No.1 pick in the draft, is a relative newcomer in the best basketball league in the world and a few are still getting to grips with his 10-letter surname.
Those include the staff in charge of applying the iron-on, heat transfer name and number on all of the roster’s jerseys. In Friday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors, keen-eyed observers noticed something strange about the rear of Wemby’s jersey during the first half. Instead of Wembanyama, his name was spelled “Wembanyana” with a ‘n’ instead of an ‘m’ - an easy mistake to make and it appears that the player himself didn’t realize right away (or decided to wait until the interval).
The mistake was spotted and Wemby appeared with a new shirt bearing the correct spelling of his surname in the second quarter. He admitted after the 118-112 defeat that it was a “real shame” that someone got his name wrong but didn’t place any more importance on the gaffe.
‘Lucky’ mistake
It’s not the first time that something like this has happened - in fact, it’s more common that you might think - especially with more unusual names. Some even don’t mind so much that their names are misspelled. In the soccer world, Manchester United’s Casemiro is a good example - his real name is Carlos Henrique Casimiro but during his time at Real Madrid, Porto and United his name has always appeared as Casemiro, with an ‘e’ not an ‘i’.
He explained that the error dates all the way to when he was starting out with his first club, São Paulo. His name was misspelled but that didn’t stop him from having a good performance, so much so that the highly superstitious midfielder decided the oversight could even be bringing him good luck. “I told them, ‘Just leave it like that, as things are going well!’” he explained.