Goalkeepers have the luxury of being able to well virtually whatever they want when they are out on the field. This is something that actually attracts a lot of people to the position. Even some of the top names in the game admit that they were initially drawn to the goal because they liked the opportunity to be different. With the ability to choose though, comes an even greater dilemma. What are you going to wear? For some of us who like to look great between the sticks choosing your outfit for the day can take longer than getting dressed for a party.
Don’t worry though, I am not going to bore you with a list of jerseys or outfits that I have and I like to mix and match them. Today, we are going to be looking at one of the greatest dilemmas in the goalkeeping community. Should you be wearing shorts, or should you wear pants? What are the benefits of either option? I also want to take time to talk about the fallout from choosing one side over the other. Since choosing to wear shorts for example could lead you to want to use longer sox. While in other cases some keepers rely so much on the pants that they don’t wear socks, shin guards, or other types of protection. I don’t want to give too much away, so let’s get going.
What You Should Be Wearing For Training
The outfit that you’re going to choose for training will most likely differ from what you would wear for training. Right off the bat, I would say that using pants for training is mostly going to be the better option. The reality is that pants are going to protect your knees and legs a lot better than shorts will. I mentioned this in the knee pad article. I’ve seen keeper girls out there training with really short shorts. I’m going to reiterate what I said then, my hat off to them, I find it incredible that they’re able to cope with the scratches and the bruises.
Now, scratches and bruises are going to be part of the deal. If there was a pact that you would have to sign before getting in goal one of the clauses would be that scratches and bruises are non-negotiable. Even so, you want to limit the amount of damage that your body is taking. In some of the early stages of youth, soccer kids are going to be able to dive from side to side in shorts without too much trouble. You probably want to get into the habit of wearing pants though for training.
One of the main reasons why we don’t typically see major injuries in the early stages of youth soccer is that young keepers at least don’t have enough strength to propel themselves on a dive or whatever they’re doing. This means that kids are going to fall down on their knees with shorts on and the worst that can most likely happen is minor scratching and bruising. As you get older the amount of damage that you can do to your own body is going to increase.
Just based on the fact that you should have more strength to propel yourself towards the ground plus, having to carry more pounds on your own body. Find footage of pros training they’re all wearing all the time. The reason for that as well is that you’re going to hit the ground may be over 100 times in practice. During a game, that number could be as low as ten. You are probably going to want to be more protected.
Why Wearing Shorts For A Game Is Ok
You see this in the pro game all of the time, as I already mentioned 99% of pro keepers train with pants. I have never seen any teammate or footage of anyone in the pros training with shorts. I used those ¾ pants quite a bit in my day. We’ll get to those options a little bit further along here, but for the most part, never shorts in training. When it comes to game time almost everyone switches to shorts. Why is it that they do this? There are actually two main reasons that one could point to for this.
Shorts are more comfortable, that’s really the first thing that most people are going to tell you. Some keepers feel that pants are going to limit their ability to move their ability to even run at times. It’s also a psychological effect. With the pants that are around these days or the leggings for that matter, the effect is not as severe as what you saw back in the day. Some of the older pants would get heavier as they got wet, this is something that still happens a bit today. Most of the fields that pro players play on are wet. Therefore, you don’t want to feel heavy when you’re playing a game. When you’re training, that extra weight can even give you a better work out. In a game, you usually want to be lighter.
The other main reason why you see most pros wear shorts during a game is that they like the look better. Most pants are black and although you can match black with almost any color you do lose some of the potentially creative outfits that you could wear. Yes, this is a very superficial and nonsensical reason. Goalkeepers in general though do love to test out different looks. If you have the opportunity to dress and be different than everyone else why wouldn’t you take it?
Does Wearing Shorts or Pants Alter The Type of Gear That You Wear?
Usually, you hear people talk about how “you practice like you play” and things of that nature. Sometimes it doesn’t apply to goalkeeping as far as the type of gear that you’ll use in practice or a game. Why do I say that? Well when wearing shorts, I am usually going to want to wear knee-high socks. That’s obviously a way to protect myself from major scratches. The thing with some of these socks is that they may slide down your leg when you have to dive or make a sudden movement. If you’re wearing that type of outfit for training it can be bothersome to have to pull your socks up every time you run through a drill.
If you’re wearing pants, wearing knee-high sox can get a little itchy. Also, if they come down it can be tougher to pull them up. While I do sometimes wear knee-high socks with pants still to have that double protection it can certainly get uncomfortable. Even if you’re wearing pants you are going to want to wear soccer socks. This is because what you don’t want to mess with is the fit with your cleats. I’ve made this mistake a ton of times. Where I would wear just regular sox and pants. What happens is that your cleats are going to have a wobbly awkward fit. Which, in turn, can make it more likely for you to roll up an ankle or suffer any other type of injury.
Do keepers wear shin guards under their pants? For training, there are very few keepers at least in the pro game that wear shin guards. I don’t like to wear them for games either! Of course, I cannot recommend that you do this. If you are doing just keeper training you don’t really need shin guards you can have off to the side and just put them on if you’re going to do a scrimmage or a contact drill. The worst thing that can happen from not wearing shin guards in a non-contact drill is getting a ball to the shin, and that usually is not a big deal. Wear shin guards doing games though, and for that, you need soccer sox.
Leggings or Pants: Which Option Works Best?
If you want the protection of pants, but you want to be able to mix and match your look with a pair of shorts that you like, leggings or goalkeeper underwear is the way to go. I have to say that I was not a fan of these types of garments until recently. Also, I had a very dumb macho way of thinking regarding this type of product. I didn’t want people to see me wearing tights! I was convinced by a friend to try them out and I can say I wear them pretty much all of the time ever since.
The thing that I like the most about wearing this type of underwear is that the padding on the knee area does stay in the knee area. With some of the older pants that I had this didn’t happen. Now, I could attribute the pads not staying in place to the fact that I used to wear very loose pants. The reason behind this was that I didn’t want to feel like I was losing flexibility with tight garments on. You could make the argument that this was more comfortable, but at the same time, the padding really didn’t work as effectively.
If I had to say which type of garment works best I would say that each of them has a place. Leggings are going to be great for training. You are going to ensure that the padding stays in place and really does cushion the fall. At times these leggings can be too tight for a regular game when you want to feel as loose as you can. This is where ¾ pants and other options could come in. Especially if you’re playing a game on a harder surface or field turf. Where wearing shorts is going to almost certainly mean you’re going to end up all scratched up!
Best Goalkeeper Pants Options
There are a whole bunch more short options out there. You can search for goalkeeper shorts with padding and what you are probably going to want to see is which one fits your waist and has at least some type of padding. What I do want to talk about though, are pants, ¾ pants, and legging options. When you look at the options that different brands are offering the design can be totally different on the exact same product. Therefore, I want to go over some of the options that I like and why!
Best Goalkeeper Leggings
For leggings, I like the Elite Compression Legging. When you look at them the protections that they feature may not seem like much. That’s one of the reasons why some people stay away from them. I love the freedom that you get with these though. As I mention I am not someone who’s traditionally a fan of wearing tight clothes, but these are wearable for me. Also, they are a great ally in cold-weather games. I personally wear a Buffon legging. I would love to prop up that brand because I love their gloves as well, but they’re a Mexican brand without too much international presence. They’re probably hard to get in other corners of the world, where you may be reading this.
Best Goalkeeper Full Pants
For this category, I’m going to go with the Reusch Alex Goalkeeper Pant. I would say that this option is loose enough, for those of us that don’t like to feel uptight. At the same time though it features relatively decent-sized padding to wear you have a better chance of actually being protected even if the pads move a little bit out of place as you move through the goal. I don’t love the Adidas Tierro Goalkeeper Pants. I feel like they just took the regular training pants that they had and added some pads to them without any real care.
If you want to feel what it was like with pants that got heavy when wet and give you a tougher workout try the Rinat Moya Goalkeeper Pants. I bought multiple pairs of these over ten years ago, used the heck out of them and I decommissioned them last year because the waist spring finally gave out. This model is a little bit tighter than the old school ones I had, but they tend to be durable and get the job done.
Best ¾ Goalkeeper Pants Option
The top option here in my book is the Elite Pro Goalkeeper 3/4 Pants. The pads are just where they need to be and the pants are tight enough to where the protection is going to stay in place, but you’ll be able to easily move around in them. The Reusch Alex Breezer Knicker Goalkeeper Pant is another good option. If you are looking for ¾ pants that are naturally a little looser this is the option for you.
What Should You Be Wearing?
I know this article went off the rails a bit, but I just wanted to wrap up properly. I think it’s clear throughout the article, and I would bet most keepers would agree that for training you probably want to have a little extra protection. There is no need to put your knees on the line every day of training. Therefore, wearing pants can be the top option. If you want to wear shorts for games I would see knee-high sox can be a good idea. They were a very popular early 2000’s look, and have mainly fallen out of favor. That’s mainly because keepers are wearing leggings now even to games!
At the end of the day, you’re probably going to have to decide what’s more important to you. Do you want to make sure that you look great in goal? Then go with the shorts and no protection that’ll probably do the trick. Just know that there is also no shame in going for that little bit of extra protection. If you feel that you lose a lot of movement with either leggings or pants, then go grab the shorts!
