HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves Review

There’s an argument to be made that HO Soccer is one of those brands that has flown under the radar over the last few years. That’s really unfortunate; it may have to do more with the fact that other goalkeeper glove manufacturers have done a better job at marketing their products. Also, as I’ve talked about on this site quite a bit, certain brands have made huge efforts to modernize the gloves that they’re putting out there. What happens is that other brands create perhaps more appealing products. When it comes to the HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves I get the sense that I’m looking at a very classic type of glove. That’s not a bad thing at all. Why do you want to fix something that isn’t broken? 

What I do want to do is shed more light on these particular gloves. I’m probably getting a little bit too ahead of myself and revealing that most of the things that I’m going to be saying about these gloves are positive. There’s a reason though why I would sing these gloves’ praises. Also, I get the sense that a lot of the people coming into goalkeeping are having trouble figuring out what you should look for in goalkeeper gloves. Not everything that comes from the top brands is going to be the best fit for you in your career. Especially if you’re just starting out! With all this in mind, let’s get going to see if the HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves are a good buy!

HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves – Grip

When it comes to grip these HO gloves are opting for the traditional sense of grip more than what we see with modern gloves. What I mean by that is, you can’t expect these gloves to be overly sticky. I actually went through this with one of the other gloves that I talked about in the past. What we as goalkeepers considered good grip was usually soft latex goalkeeper gloves. It isn’t until rather recently that we started seeing gloves getting overly sticky. They may have been influenced by gloves from other sports. For example, it’s pretty obvious that Nike goalkeeper gloves are heavily influenced by American Football gloves. That’s not necessarily a positive thing. With these HO gloves what you’re getting is traditional grip. 

One of the best things about traditional grip is that it typically lasts longer than the stickiness of a new glove. It’s not that the ball is going to stick to your glove, what you’re going to feel with these gloves is a sense of ease when you make clean catches. That’s due to the soft latex and the fact that the palm is thick enough to where you’re not going to feel the power of the shot as much when it comes in. Since the ball is going to feel softer as it comes in, even when you’re dealing with a rather hard shot it makes clean catches easier. As I say pretty much with every glove I talk about, if you need more stickiness you can always use Gloveglu.  

Keylor Navas training with PSG

These Gloves Fit Most Goalkeepers Out There

These gloves are actually a bit on the thicker side. They even feature a wider finger cut. With some of the other gloves that I reviewed I mentioned that the finger cut was a bit too thin. Plenty of glove manufacturers are going with thinner finger cuts because it gives you better hand mobility and that also can provide a better grip on the ball. However, when the glove is too thin it can be difficult to wear for people with thicker hands. These HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Goalkeeper Gloves are a lot wider in the finger area and thicker between the palm and the backhand. At the same time they feature a wrist strap. So this means that they are typically going to be easier to put in, and virtually no goalkeeper is going to feel that their gloves are too tight. 

I just want to pause to remind everyone that when I talk about the way that gloves fit I’m referring to how gloves are going to fit when they are your size. Even though all of the brands have their sizing charts the way that certain gloves are made will affect the fit even if they are presumably the same size as other gloves. If there’s any issue with these gloves it may be that they could end up feeling too wide for people with thinner hands. This would be due to what I mentioned, about the wider finger cut. What I can say to that is that I have thinner hands and tried them on. Ultimately I didn’t get the sense that these gloves were too wide for me. If you have a thinner hand than me, you could be in trouble.      

The Classic Wrist Strap Helps

When you’re dealing with a wider glove across the board you’re basically always going to want a wrist strap to help you stabilize your hand in the glove. Technically you could go with a strapless wide goalkeeper glove. It would look really weird though in my opinion. Then you’d have a situation where it may be hard to put the glove on, but once you’ve got it on your fingers are going to feel free inside the glove. Hypothetical scenarios aside there’s nothing extremely fancy about this wrist area on these gloves. In fact, the wrist area does feature that elastic material that we see in strapless gloves. There is a chance that you’ll have some trouble putting them on at first.

I generally like the fact that you can use the strap to wrap it around your entire wrist area. This is going to ensure that you don’t feel like your hand is too loose inside the glove. Remember that when you have a glove that’s in essence too big for your hand there’s usually a great risk of injury. When you’re able to sure up the wrist area that’s always a positive. As is the case with virtually everything else about these gloves the folks at HO goalkeeping didn’t want to get too cute with anything.     

Applying Glove Glu

Durability May Be An Underrated Part Of These Gloves

HO soccer gloves are one of the more durable brands out there. Although the fabric is soft enough to the point where you get decent grip like I was just talking about, it just doesn’t tear as easily as what you get from other brands. Does that mean that I would be fully confident in taking these gloves to some of the roughest fields that you can find? That’s probably not going to be the case. However, they can hold their own if you’re going to be playing in hard turf from time to time. For goalkeepers that train daily in grass, durability is going to be decent. There’s no reason why you can’t get a great 3 months out of these gloves in every day training. 

I’ve given out this 3 month lifespan in other articles, and just now I’m getting the sense that people may look at that and feel that’s not a lot. Three months is not a lot for a young goalkeeper that’s 8 to maybe 13 or even 14-year-old. For young goalkeepers, first of all, there are HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves available in youth sizes. That’s a positive for sure. They can expect to have their gloves last maybe 6 months or the full season. 3 months in training though at or near a professional level for a mature goalkeeper is a great time frame. There are guys out there that may say they keep their gloves for longer. That’s just because they love wearing old rags with no grip. That’s their issue.    

Almost Perfect Price Tag For Goalkeepers Looking For A Middle Tier Option

It’s about the third time in these reviews that I get a sense that a pair of gloves is a bit overpriced. At least overpriced in my view of what I would use the gloves for. There’s no question that these HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves are very solid goalkeeper gloves. As I’ve said numerous times already they are very much crafted in a traditional sense. They are a thicker glove that’s going to provide that at times necessarily extra layer of protection to help goalkeepers deal with hard shots. At that 90 to 100 dollar range though they need to compete with other perhaps more modern options. If I was still training every single day and would be able to get a pair of these for around 70 dollars that would be perhaps a perfect deal.

What that would be is that I’d have to invest 70 dollars every 3 months or so to get a new pair. You can move the game gloves to the training gloves and repeat that process. Obviously what will probably happen is that the training gloves will be the ones to wear out quicker. Making a purchase of two pairs at the same time to start the process at 140 sounds a lot better than 200. At 100, they are still one of the best middle tier options out there, but you bring in all of the gloves at 120 into the competition if you will. I get the sense that 70 or 80 dollars for these gloves is a great price. They are currently at around 90 to 100. I’d probably pay that price, but I would have to think about it for a while.     

Important Care Information Regarding The HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves

I’ve mentioned that these gloves are more durable than perhaps some people give them credit for. While I probably wouldn’t take them to rough fields on a daily basis and expect them to last too long I also wouldn’t have an issue playing a couple of games on turf fields with them. When you do this though you’re going to want to make sure that you wash these gloves right after. In washing these gloves you’re going to want to be very careful particularly with the drying process. Remember that these are thicker gloves and that means that they’re going to take in a lot more water when you wash them.

What you want to do is make sure that you squeeze all of the water that you can out of them when you’re done washing them. Even through the washing process you don’t want to allow them to hold in too much water. From there, I would say it’s a good idea to use an active drying method with these gloves. I’ve talked about this in other articles on the site. To put it simply though, what you want to do is take a hair dryer or even put them in the dry and not hang them out to dry. The problem with just allowing them to dry out is that they’re probably going to take more time to dry than your average glove. That can lead to you not having enough time for them to dry out. They may just hold water in and that’ll make them stink.    

Who Should Buy The HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves?  

I see these gloves as a great fit for goalkeepers that are getting serious about the position, but maybe so far they’ve stuck to buying 50 dollar gloves or anything within that range. Now, they want to step up to goalkeeper gloves that offer better features. These HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves can be just the right type of glove that they’ll want to migrate to. That’s why I got so into the price debate. At 70 dollars I do feel the transition from the 50 dollar glove to a 70 dollar one can be done with ease. Even if in the big picture I would agree that these HO gloves have a 90 to 100 dollar value. Especially considering everything else that’s on the market. 

If you’re keen to purchase a pair of HO Soccer Classic Pro Roll Gold Goalkeeper Gloves I’m pretty sure your experience will be positive. If you can use my link to help me continue creating great content!