Sports
Footballers’ shin pads – the piece of equipment some pros prefer not to wear
Michael Olise does not like shin pads.
So much so that when the France winger was being brought on for Leroy Sane during Bayern Munich’s 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League in November, he was not wearing any.
This was spotted by the game’s fourth official Florin Andrei, who instructed the 23-year-old to put some on. Olise reluctantly tucked some into his socks before slinging them out again when officials looked away.
As Michael Olise prepared to come off the bench for Bayern in their Champions League game vs. PSG, he appeared to have a brief exchange with the fourth official.
Moments later, Olise was seen putting his shinpads into his socks, but then slyly removed his left guard and tossed… pic.twitter.com/ep0mqMLG79
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) November 28, 2024
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) laws of the game state that shin pads must be worn by all players. There are no specific rules regarding size but Law 4 states that they “must be made of a suitable material and be of an appropriate size to provide reasonable protection, and be covered by the socks”.
For years, many footballers have been playing fast and loose with their interpretation of the rules. The low socks and micro shin pads trend made cool by the likes of Manchester City’s Jack Grealish and Chelsea’s Lauren James has become vastly popular in recent years.
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The art of the football sock
“I don’t wear shin pads,” Olise told a fan who tried to gift him a pair recently, although the PSG incident may have been a one-off, with the 23-year-old usually spotted wearing shin protection in matches.
The former Crystal Palace player is not the only professional footballer who would prefer to enter games shin pad free if it was up to him.
“I don’t really like wearing shin pads — we never wear shin pads in the training,” former Sheffield United striker Oli McBurnie told The Athletic in November. “I want to feel how I train every day, so I wear normal socks. I cut my socks and roll them down, and then have little bits of foam that I put in like padding just to feel as comfortable.”
Manchester City’s Jack Grealish is an infamous tiny shin pad wearer (Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
Sam Weller Widdowson is credited with inventing shin pads back in 1874. He was a cricketer as well as a footballer for Nottingham Forest, later becoming the club’s chairman and a player once capped by England. It is said that Weller Widdowson cut down a pair of cricket pads and started wearing them to protect him during football matches, and that his idea soon caught on.
Shin guards in sport have been heavily influenced by greaves, an ancient armour fashioned by soldiers dating back to the Bronze Age that protected the shinbone, which has little but skin to protect it.
It was in 1990 when FIFA (making use of IFAB’s laws) ruled that shin guards must be worn by all players in every game. Before that, players could pick and choose whether they protected their shins and ankles. Back then, shin guards were clunky and protected both a player’s ankle as well as their shin.
Custom-made Diadora shin pads made for Roma’s Francesco Totti in 2006, which now appear thoroughly retro by modern standards (Giuseppe Cacace/Getty Images)
They have slimmed down somewhat in the past three decades. Now players can source credit card — or, if you like, biscuit-sized shin guards. This trend has become a worry for grassroots football clubs, some of whom have now sought to enforce bans on young players wearing them.
Penistone Church, a team from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, made headlines last August when they put a ban in place after a 15-year-old player named Alfie suffered a double leg break when getting into a challenge while wearing miniature shin pads.
“It’s not worth the extra bit of speed to have you knocked out of football for months and months. It’s not worth the risk,” Alfie told the BBC after a 50-50 tackle left him nursing a broken tibia and fibular. The shin pads the teen was wearing at the time of the tackle measured just 3cm (1.1in) by 9cm (3.5in).
@officialbhafc The world’s smallest shin pad… 🤣 #BHAFC #AFC #PL ♬ original sound – Brighton & Hove Albion FC
Warrington Town defender Peter Clarke is 25 games away from reaching his 1,000th senior appearance since his Everton debut in the Premier League in January 2001. At 42 years of age, he says he can remember the cumbersome and bulky shin pads of the late 80s, 90s and early 2000s, with their built-in ankle protectors and velcro straps. And while he wears smaller guards than the ones he started his career with, plenty of on-pitch experiences have ensured that he has never downsized too much.
“The ones I wear now are carbon fibre and they have chips and scratches in which, when I look at them, I’m glad to be wearing them,” the centre-back, who also played for Huddersfield Town, Oldham Athletic and Tranmere Rovers, says.
“Twenty years ago, tackles would fly in a lot more. I remember going into a full-blown tackle and getting hit on the shin. As the game wore on, I realised there was blood on my sock — the studs had gone right through the shin pad and left a two-inch cut down my shin. It is a contact sport and it is wise to be well protected rather than wearing the smallest shin pads possible.”
Shin pads are designed to protect players’ legs during moments of impact (VI Images via Getty Images)
His longevity means Clarke is playing in the National League North alongside team-mates at Warrington who were born after he made his first professional appearance. What does he think is the reason that more players are opting for tiny shin pads these days?
“I don’t like the feel of them slipping around, so I wear sleeves to prevent that,” Clarke says. “Whether it is that or whether it is how an individual looks when they are playing; but I’m not sure a seven-inch piece of plastic or carbon fibre is going to slow an individual down that much. I’m not entirely sure but things have certainly changed and it is not for the best in terms of player safety.”
Clarke estimates he has used five or six pairs of shin pads throughout a career that has spanned more than 25 years and saw him defend against Thierry Henry (then of Arsenal) and Cristiano Ronaldo (then of Manchester United). He makes sure his daughter and son wear adequately-sized shin pads for their own protection when playing and encourages others to do the same.
While he has opted for plainer efforts, his children have customised guards with pictures of themselves and their family on. That is something a lot of players at all levels are opting for now, with some elite players even having pictures of just themselves on their own shin pads.
Cristiano Ronaldo wore shin pads at Euro 2024 featuring images of his nearest and dearest (Marcus Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Manchester City and Brazil goalkeeper Ederson, and Crystal Palace and France striker Jean-Philippe Mateta are among those who do take to the pitch with images of their own faces tucked inside their socks.
For every Luka Modric, who wears one with photos of himself playing for Croatia and winning the Champions League with Real Madrid and the other of his wife and children, which he often kisses before stepping onto the pitch, there’s a Declan Rice who prefers to keep things simple with plain shock-absorbing material guards.
Luka Modric gives his shin pad a kiss for luck (David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)
England and Arsenal striker Alessia Russo has a selfie with her parents printed at the bottom of hers and above is an image of her iconic backheel nutmeg goal against Sweden at the European Championship in 2022, which was nominated for the Puskas award that same year.
Arsenal and England striker Alessia Russo’s shin pads (Molly Darlington – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
For players, shin pads can serve not just as protection but as positive homages to help psych themselves up before a game.
Former Real Madrid striker Joselu wore a picture of a dog on his shin guards for a Champions League quarter-final last season (Gonzalo Arroyo – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
Some footballers opt to have their shin guards specially fitted. When former Wales international Gareth Bale was at Real Madrid, he wore a pair made by Podoactiva, a Biotechnology company that specialises in podiatry and biomechanics. It also designs custom-fitted insoles for players’ boots.
Ultimately, shin pads are there to protect players from serious injury but have also become a fashion statement — and, believe it or not, some shin pads are now supporting some players in sourcing moves in the transfer window.
Italy and Lazio striker Martina Piemonte moved from AC Milan to Everton in 2023 and put the transfer to the Women’s Super League in part down to the data her XSEED shin guards, created by Italian analytics company Soccerment, helped her collect during matches.
Aldo Comi is co-founder and CEO of the wearable technology company who have been fine-tuning their artificially intelligent shin guards since the product’s official launch in 2022. They now have approximately 3,000 players wearing XSEED and using the adjacent app, which allows players to interpret their own data. As brand ambassador, Inter Milan full-back Federico Dimarco is one of the more high-profile male footballers wearing the shin guards.
“We try to give the player ownership of their data so that they can use it to improve, to be faster and better, but then also to gain visibility,” Comi says. Soccerment’s shin pads measure a player’s speed, sprints, shots, crosses, passes and more. They also became the first wearable technology to provide expected goals (xG) metrics.
Soccerment’s ‘connected’ shin pads on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 2020 (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Soccerment recently spent six days in California at the Major League Soccer youth tournament MLS NEXT Fest. “For six days, we datafied the 35 matches and more than 220 players,” Comi explains. “And basically, what we did there was create a scouting platform at the event.”
Comi says they were able to create a data breakdown in order to scout players (one of their goals is to create a worldwide scouting platform from this data) who outperformed their peers in various areas. The company has noticed the recent trend in shrinking shin guards, though, particularly among youth players — and are already reacting to it.
“The past two years, the trend has been having smaller and smaller shin guards. In some cases, players don’t even wear them,” he says. “You can see a lot of professional footballers are faking it by using these little sponges underneath their socks which, in my view, is dangerous. What we need to do (at Soccerment) is respond to this trend, which is why we are working on resizing our shin guards and making them smaller and lighter.”
Former Blackpool inside forward Allan Brown, pictured in 1953, shows shin pads as they once were (Allsport UK/Getty Images)
But Soccerment is first off focused on creating shin guards that — before capturing data and protecting the technology within each pad — protect the player.
“We wanted to have them certified as a protective equipment and that is why we had to select the premium materials. For example, we went for a copolymer, which is also used in the aerospace sector for its ability to absorb shocks. It’s been expensive for us but it makes the shin guards really protective.
“And that should be the main purpose of a shin guard: to protect your shins.”
(Top photo: Pau Barrena/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)
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The Atlanta Falcons have added one of the team’s greatest players to its front office.
The Falcons announced on Saturday that former quarterback Matt Ryan, who spent the first 14 years of his 15-year NFL career with the team after being drafted third overall in 2008, will be president of football on Saturday. The 40-year-old Ryan, who holds team records for passing yards, touchdowns and wins, will assume the new role immediately.
Ryan will report directly to owner Arthur Blank and collaborate with president and CEO Greg Beadles to ensure the alignment of the business and football areas of the organization.
Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (2) on the sideline before he is inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at halftime of a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Oct. 3, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)
“Throughout his remarkable 14-year career in Atlanta, Matt’s leadership, attention to detail, knowledge of the game and unrelenting drive to win made him the most successful player in our franchise’s history,” Blank said in a statement.
“I am confident those same qualities will be a tremendous benefit to our organization as he steps into this new role. From his playing days to his time as an analyst at CBS, Matt has always been a student of the game, and he brings an astute understanding of today’s NFL, as well as unique knowledge of our organization and this market. I have full confidence and trust in Matt as we strive to deliver a championship caliber team for Atlanta and Falcons fans everywhere.”
The Falcons fired head coach Raheem Morris on Sunday after back-to-back 8-9 seasons. The Falcons had won their last four games, leading some to believe Morris might be afforded a third season, but Blank had other plans.
AARON RODGERS TAKES THINLY-VEILED SHOT AT JETS AHEAD OF STEELERS’ PLAYOFF GAME
CBS Sports broadcaster Matt Ryan before a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado, on Nov. 16, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)
The Falcons also fired general manager Terry Fontenot after five seasons on Sunday. Ryan will be fully involved in the team’s search for the Falcons’ next head coach and general manager.
“Arthur gave me the chance of a lifetime almost twenty years ago, and he’s done it again today,” Ryan said in a statement.
“While I appreciate the time I had with the Colts and with CBS, I’ve always been a Falcon. It feels great to be home. I could not be more excited, grateful, or humbled by this new opportunity. I began my career with a singular goal: to do right by the Blank family, the Falcons organization, the City of Atlanta, and especially our fans. My commitment to the success of this franchise has not changed. I’m beyond ready to help write a new chapter of excellence.”
Ryan has spent the last three seasons as a member of the CBS Sports team as an analyst.
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Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (2) passes the ball against the Buffalo Bills during the second half at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, on Jan. 2, 2022. (Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports)
“I want to thank the incredible team at CBS Sports. I loved my three years there and I am truly grateful for their support in pursuing this opportunity. The CBS Sports culture is amazing, and I have made teammates and friends for life,” Ryan said in a statement.
Ryan, who was drafted out of Boston College, played with the Falcons for 14 seasons and holds many franchise records, including passing yards (59,735), attempts (8,003), completions (5,242), passing touchdowns (367), passer rating (94.6), completion percentage (65.5) and 300-yard games (73).
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Sports
Indiana crushes Oregon to advance to first championship game in program history, stunning sports world
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The 2025 Indiana Hoosiers became the fifth team in modern college football history to go 15-0. Now they can become the first team of the modern era to ever go 16-0, and only the second of all-time, joining an 1894 Yale team that played with leather helmets.
With a merciless 56-22 thumping of Oregon in the Peach Bowl, the Hoosiers punched their ticket to their first national championship game appearance in program history.
Head coach Curt Cignetti has left the college football world breathless with a dramatic turnaround of the Hoosiers program, going from one of the losingest teams in the Big 10 to potentially the most dominant single-season of all time.
Elijah Sarratt #13 of the Indiana Hoosiers is tackled by Ify Obidegwu #7 of the Oregon Ducks during the first quarter in the 2025 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on January 09, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Many prominent sports figures took to social media to express their amazement of Indiana’s unprecedented dominance during and after their win over Oregon. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun also chimed in.
Indiana’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza threw five touchdown passes, improving his case to be the top pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.
Kaelon Black ran for two touchdowns to lead the Indiana running game.
INDIANA WINS FIRST OUTRIGHT BIG 10 FOOTBALL TITLE SINCE 1945 AFTER OHIO STATE FLUBS SHORT FIELD GOAL TRY
Fernando Mendoza #15 of the Indiana Hoosiers is tackled by Aaron Flowers #21 of the Oregon Ducks during the second quarter in the 2025 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on January 09, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Oregon (13-2, No. 5 CFP) was doomed by the three first-half turnovers while also being short-handed by the absence of two of their top running backs.
Indiana’s defense didn’t wait long to make an impact. On Oregon’s first snap, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds intercepted Moore’s pass intended for Malik Benson and returned the pick 25 yards for a touchdown. Only 11 seconds into the game, the Hoosiers and their defense already had made a statement this would be a long night for Moore and the Oregon offense.
Moore’s 19-yard scoring pass to tight end Jamari Johnson tied the game. The remainder of the half belonged to Indiana and its big-play defense.
After Mendoza’s 8-yard touchdown pass to Omar Cooper Jr. gave the Hoosiers the lead for good at 14-7, Indiana’s defense forced a turnover when Moore fumbled and Indiana recovered at the Oregon 3, setting up Black’s scoring run.
Moore lost a second fumble later in the second quarter when hit by Daniel Ndukwe and Mario Landino recovered at the Oregon 21. Mendoza’s first scoring pass to Sarratt gave the Hoosiers’ the 35-7 lead.
Indiana extended its lead to 42-7 on Mendoza’s 13-yard scoring pass to E.J. Williams Jr.
Oregon finally answered. A 70-yard run by Hill set up a 2-yard scoring run by Harris.
The Hoosiers led 35-7 at halftime as the Ducks were held to nine rushing yards on 17 carries. Noah Whittington, who leads Oregon with 829 rushing yards, was held out with an undisclosed injury after Jordon Davison, who had rushed for 667 yards and 15 touchdowns, already was listed as out with a collarbone injury.
Backup running backs, including Jay Harris and Dierre Hill Jr, provided too little help for quarterback Dante Moore. Moore’s task against Indiana’s stifling defense would have been daunting even with all his weapons.
Following their undefeated regular season, the Hoosiers have only gained momentum in the CFP. Indiana overwhelmed Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal as Mendoza passed for 192 yards and three touchdowns.
Now, the Hoosiers will prepare to face Miami on Jan. 19 in the national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Miami beat Mississippi 31-27 in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal on Thursday night.
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Roman Hemby #1 of the Indiana Hoosiers runs out of bounds before the endzone against the Oregon Ducks during the second quarter in the 2025 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on January 09, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
Indiana will try to give the Big Ten its third straight national title, following Ohio State and Michigan the last two seasons. Few teams from any conference can compare with the Hoosiers’ season-long demonstration of balanced strong play.
The country will be watching to see if this unprecedented team can finish the job and really punch their ticket into the history books.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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