Whenever you watch a professional soccer match, one of the first things that you might notice about the players on the field is that most of them have shaved legs. Are you wondering why? It’s not for the reasons that you might think.
One might think that soccer players shave their legs just to make sure that they look better in front of the cameras that chase them wherever they go on the field, but that’s not the main reason why they shave their legs.
Soccer players (footballers) shave their legs to be able to treat their injuries easier, remove their bandage easier, reduce the friction of their body with their sweaty jerseys, get better body massages, look perfect in front of the cameras and more.
The following are some of the main reasons behind soccer players shaving their body hair.
1- Easier injury treatment
Yes, not having body hair can make treating an injured player a little bit easier.
While soccer isn’t usually a violent sport for people who play it for fun, it can sometimes be a little bit aggressive on the professional level.
During an intense soccer match, there’s always a chance that one of the players gets injured on the field. Blood might come out in some serious injuries.
Once the medical team runs to help the injured players, it will be easier for them to identify the depth of the injury if the player didn’t have body hair. The injury will be much clearer to the medics.
Applying medical aid on the injury is usually smoother if the player doesn’t have heavy hair on the injured part of their body.
2- Easier bandage removals.
If you have body hair, then you already know how much you’ll suffer when removing your bandage.
Taking a bandage out will take the hair out with it, and the process will be extremely painful.
If you take the bandage slowly, it’ll be a very painful process, and if you take it fast, then you’ll lose all the hair under it and the area that was covered with the bandage will look weird because it’s hairless while every other area around it has hair on it.
You might not know this, but soccer players use bandages A LOT. Even when they aren’t injured. For that reason, getting rid of their body hair will relieve them from the misery whenever they have to take the bandages off.
3- Players grab each other a lot by their hands
Soccer is a contact sport. If you want to be a professional soccer player, then the first thing that you need to know is that you’ll be in contact with other players millions of times.
Some of these contacts are friendly, and others are not. Some of them will include grabbing you by your hand. This happens especially during corner kicks and free kicks.
For example, when the referee is busy focusing on the player who’s executing the corner kick, the players who are waiting inside the penalty area hoping to be able to head the ball will be grabbing each other a lot.
But why am I saying all this? The reason is that players might grab some of your hand hair accidentally while they’re trying to grab your hand, and this can be a little bit painful.
4- Friction with the t-shirt.
I don’t need a research paper to back up the claim that I’m going to state next. When you run a lot, you sweat a lot, and soccer players will keep running during the whole match.
The friction between the T-Shirt and the sweat mixed with chest hair might not be a pleasant experience for some soccer players. For that reason, the players might decide to just get rid of the hair because it’s not worth it.
5- Easier body massages.
Soccer players get a lot of massages between games. Sometimes, players get massages on camera during a soccer game before the extra time of a soccer game starts.
Massages are extremely important for soccer players. They help their muscles relax and they reduce the injury risks for the players.
Body hair, however, can make massages a less pleasant experience. Massages can be a little bit painful when you have body hair on you. They also make it harder for the massager to apply any needed liquids on your body, and it might also make the massagers less comfortable.
Thus, getting rid of body hair improves the player’s experience with the massages that they have to take on a regular basis.
6- Soccer players need to look perfect in front of cameras
This is one of the most obvious reasons why soccer players might decide to shave their legs. Shaving their body hair makes them look better in front of the cameras that chase them around both on the soccer field and off the soccer field.
7- Reducing drag while running.
I left this one till the end because it might sound a little bit nonsense. However, some soccer players pretend that they feel a little bit faster when they shave their body hair.
Shaving your body hair just because you think you’ll run faster might not make any sense, however, this doesn’t mean that shaving your body hair doesn’t have it’s benefits on your runs no matter how slight the benefit is.
There are studies that have been done on cyclers to prove that they move faster without body hair. The studies claim that shaved bodies have less drag which results in a faster movement.
It’s true that this study has been executed on cyclers and not runners, however it still shows that the body hair can have a slight effect on how fast things move.
I’ll end this article by stating that while many soccer players prefer to shave their legs for the reasons mentioned above, other soccer players still keep their hair without facing any issues. So, whether you shave your body hair or not should be your own personal choice. Do whatever you think is better for you.