Do Professional Soccer Players Wear Metal Cleats?


Soccer cleats, also called studs, are used on the bottom of the shoe to increase grip on surfaces like grass, artificial grass, or turf.

Someone might wonder if metal cleats are even necessary for soccer. If they actually give better grip, or if they might be dangerous. These are valid questions, but the best question we can answer is if professional soccer players wear metal cleats.

That might give us an answer to all our questions because if pros are using them, there must be a very good reason behind it.

Professional soccer players wear metal cleats for the majority of the time since they offer the best grip on the soft grass they play on. However, not every soccer player has the same preference. They sometimes opt for shorter plastic or rubber cleats in countries where the ground is firm.

Soccer Cleats Regulations

Before we get into the main topic, we took some time to research a bit about regulations to see if any restrictions prevent players from wearing metal cleats in certain situations.

Typically, specific regulations by every single league are hard to find. Luckily for us, major professional soccer leagues all over the world follow FIFA’s equipment safety regulations. They basically respect FIFA’s decisions but present them in their own regulations documents.

FIFA’s regulations don’t go into details about cleats except for the list of materials they need to be made of. The document states that shoes’ soles can include leather, rubber, and nylon with aluminum, plastic, or rubber cleats. Additionally, they allow the officiating referee of each game to inspect and restrict players from wearing specific cleats based on his/her evaluation.

These regulations seem to be quite lenient in practice, allowing professional soccer players to have various options to choose from. To ensure everything is within safety boundaries, referees have to inspect each player’s shoes before the game. All along, soccer boot brands make sure they follow the guidelines to avoid any problems for players, which can hurt the brand image.

Worthy of mentioning is that college leagues, which are considered semi-pro for the most part, are allowed to alter the safety rules and restrict players from wearing certain equipment types.

Some minor leagues go even further than that and completely ban metal cleats. They are preventing minors from injuring themselves by yet not knowing how to tackle properly.

Do Professional Soccer Players Wear Metal Cleats?

Yes, most professional soccer players wear metal cleats. Soccer players wear shoes with metal studs (recommended) because the surface they play on is usually very soft. In countries with mid to high humidity and rain, the ground beneath the grass stays wet and soft for a long time. Even if there isn’t any rain on the day of the match, they might stick with the metal cleats to be safe.

A good thing for players is that soccer shoe brands have the same shoe available with several different cleat options and patterns. Players occasionally bring a few of these to the game and equip the most suitable for the situation.

Why Metal Cleats Work Best on Soft Surfaces?

Metal is a much harder material than plastic or rubber, meaning the cleats can be longer. Being longer allows them to stick deeper into the soft ground and provide better grip and stability, especially during contact play.

Why Don’t Some Professional Soccer Players Wear Metal Cleats?

As you can guess from metal cleat usage, some players might wear shoes with plastic studs (affiliate link) for most or even all of their careers. Some of them have no choice because their country is often arid, making the playing surface firm. Metal cleats would slide too much on terrain like that.

Cristiano Ronaldo was always using metal cleats when he was in Manchester United, where there is a lot of rain and humidity. In Real Madrid, he wore plastic cleats more than metal ones. Now in Juventus in Italy, he wears plastic cleats almost exclusively.

Soccer Shoes with Mixed Cleats

In recent years, soccer shoes with mixed metal and plastic cleats started replacing the past’s all-metal cleats. The metal cleats are kept in the six most essential places on the soles. The rest is filled with shorter plastic cleats to provide stability.

This method of cleat placement proved to be the most efficient. Having less of long metal cleats supported by shorter plastic cleats in the middle proved to allow metal cleats to dig deeper into the ground and increase grip even better.

These mixed patterns can be made specific to a player’s position on the field to maximize their playing capabilities.

Players that wore all-metal cleats have rapidly switched to mixed patterns.

Players Who Always Wear Metal Cleats

There are countless examples, but other than weather, cleat choice can be affected by the type of player as well.

One of the best examples was always Gennaro Gattuso. A type of heavy-footed player who always looks for contact plays with a lot of slide tackling. Metal cleats were kind of associated with rough players, especially back in the day when there were many of them.

Which kind of leads us to a question about the safety of metal cleats.

Are Metal Cleats Actually Safe in Pro Soccer?

I’m guessing this was always the first question that came to mind for lots of people. If players have a choice of wearing one or the other, how safety affects their choice?

While metal cleats can seem intimidating, in reality, they are actually safer than plastic ones. They are made to be round with no sharp edges whatsoever. If you get hit or stepped on by them, it’s not any more dangerous than if it happened with plastic ones. The plastic cleat can break and sharp edges can hurt other players.

The player or the referee won’t notice this during the game, and the next tackle can injure someone.

Truth be told, it’s less dangerous because that solid metal won’t break in any situation. In addition to that, plastic cleats can be in bladed shape, which is already marginally unsafe.

Can You Wear Metal Cleats on Artificial Grass?

Before we conclude the story, you may wonder what professional soccer players use on artificial grass.

You may have seen that some professional soccer players have their small private practice courts with artificial grass. They most likely use shoes with plastic studs because those courts are rarely soft enough for metal cleats.

Older artificial grass soccer courts were called turfs. They were quite firm and not suitable even for plastic cleats. Instead, you would need to wear shoes with lots of small rubber studs.

Some better artificial grass courts are on top of a layer of sand-like rubber pieces. If that layer is deep enough, you can actually perform better with metal cleats.

Conclusion

Professional soccer players most certainly use metal cleats. They are better for soft surfaces where soccer is mostly played, especially in countries with frequent rain and high humidity. Additionally, they are safer in most situations for pro players, which might not be so in some minor or college leagues.

Today, soccer shoe brands are creating wonders with their cleat patterns and shapes. They revolutionized the cleat choice to such a high level that mixed material cleats are rapidly outperforming all other choices and taking them off the professional market.

Related articles:  

Do Professional Soccer Players Wear Two Pair of Socks?

Do Pro Soccer Players Tape Their Ankles?


Professionals HQ

Hi, my name is Jim. I'm a hardcore sports enthusiast and also the founder of ProfessionalsHQ, where my team and I will share our knowledge and provide you with the best and up-to-date information about professional sport.

Recent Posts