Soccer Shorts for Kids, Women and Men: Sizing, Lengths, Liners and Padded Goalkeeper Shorts Explained
Shorts look like the simplest buy in the bag, and they are the item most often returned: too long on a small child, too tight across the thigh for a teenager, no pockets for the parent who wants them, pockets for the coach who bans them. Add the separate world of padded goalkeeper shorts and it is worth five minutes. Here is how shorts are sized, the lengths and liners that work for each player, and what goalkeepers actually need. Sizing: waist first, then length Soccer shorts are sized by waist with an elastic drawstring, so the waist size is forgiving. Length is not. Youth shorts should finish above the knee, roughly mid-thigh for under-8s and a hand's width above the knee from age ten; anything longer catches the knee when sprinting and looks borrowed. Adult inseams run from 5 in (13 cm) for a modern short cut to 9 in (23 cm) for a traditional one. Women's cuts have a shorter rise and a narrower waist; many women prefer youth large or men's small for a longer leg. Y...