How to Buy Youth Soccer Cleats

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Guillermo Gomez, I coach youth soccer and one of the questions parents always ask me before the season starts is how to buy soccer cleats for youth players. Well, if the players are still growing, I would recommend not to over spend on the shoes because when somebody plays soccer you actually want them to wear the proper size. You can not do it like regular shoes that you see your boy, well, I'm going to get him an extra size bigger because in six months those shoes will not fit anymore or they will still be just the proper size. In soccer you actually want to get them the right size because that gives them the right feel for the soccer ball and also it avoids them from getting any injuries or blisters on their feet. So, now you're at the store so how do you decide what shoes to get? Well, shoe cleats can be divided in three categories. Okay, so we have firm ground, hard ground and soft ground cleats. Firm ground is basically what most youth soccer players play on here in the US. Basically that means that the ground is neither too soft nor too hard, so you want the thunder cleats that we know with basic studs, they have about 15 studs and they give you good traction so you can do quick turning during the game. Then we move into the next category which is the firm ground. Firm ground because sometimes it feels very tough on your feet. You actually want to buy cleats that are multi-studded so we compare the firm ground, the hard ground vs., the firm ground we can see that the hard ground cleats have almost double the amount of studs than the firm ground cleats. So, that's how you can tell whether they are for firm ground or hard ground. So, hard ground, multi-studded, firm ground, they have studs but not quite as many. The reason they put so many studs on the hard ground cleats is because it gives you a less feel of the studs on your feet because the weight is evenly distributed, so that puts less pressure on the bottom of your feet. Then we have the soft ground cleats which basically you can find them with removal studs and they can come in different sizes so basically you can take the stud out. You can screw them out. They have quite a few less, less than what they use for firm ground. They actually just have two on the back and four in the front. They can be removable or they can also be molded. In this case I brought the molded ones which also can be used for soft ground. They're molded in interesting shapes so that when you enter a soft field, and a soft field or soft ground refers to fields that are wet, sometimes muddy so you need a lot of traction. You need deep studs or deep molded lower outsoles so that when you're playing the game you're not slipping on the field and you can actually your quick turnings. So, here we go, let me summarize it. We have the three kinds. We start with the firm ground, which is the thunder soccer shoe that most of us know. Then we have the hard ground, which is multi-studded. Then we have either the removable stud cleat, which I don't have one with me today but then I do have the molded type which tend to have very long and fewer studs on the shoe. Then we want to look at what kind of surface that you want to buy. Do you want to buy leather or do you want to buy synthetic leather? Again, if you are an older player, my recommendation is stay with leather. I would recommend candor leather. Candor leather is very soft, it gives you a very good feel of the ball but if you're still a youth player, I would recommend to stay with synthetic leather. They're a little cheaper and easy to take care of. So, those are the things you want to look at. The disadvantage again of synthetic leather is is want give you a good feel on the ball but still you are going to be okay. So, good luck when you get your next pair of cleats."