Soccer - The Beautiful Game is Beauty in Simplicity

Soccer has often been called 'the beautiful game'. Art, whether music, painting or architecture, is often best when it is least cluttered by unnecessary 'stuff'. The most beautiful women in the world are naturally beautiful and don't need to layer on the makeup and hair spray. In all these cases there is tremendous truth to the phrase, 'beauty in simplicity'. Soccer is no different and has good reason to be referred to as 'the beautiful game'.

The general premise of soccer is about as basic as it comes. You can see the root of the game unfold in front of you if whenever you're around a toddler or small child. Put a ball in front of them and they are far more likely to start kicking it and chasing after it than they are to pick it up and try to throw it into a waste basket or to pick up a stick and try to knock it out of the air.

The rules are basic. Don't use your hands and try to get it into your opponents goal. The equipment is basic; all you really need is a ball. The rest, and there's not a lot more, is not totally necessary for a basic game. You can use rocks, shirts, or whatever else is lying around to mark the 'goal', and then it's game on!

Taking it to a little higher level, yes, there is some equipment that is specific to the game of soccer. Most importantly are the shoes, or soccer cleats. Depending on the type of surface you are playing on, you will want shoes with varying amounts of grip or traction into the ground. The softer, wetter or longer grass surfaces require cleats with longer, more aggressive cleats more widely spaced apart. For harder surfaces and shorter grass, you'll still want cleats, but they can be shorter and/or more closely placed together on the sole of the shoe. If you are playing indoors, either on a carpet like surface or perhaps even on a hard floor such as a sport-court or wooden basketball court, you'll want flat soled indoor soccer shoes.

About the only place where the equipment gets a tiny bit more extravagant is with soccer goalkeepers. Soccer goalie equipment is meant to help them not only control a ball coming at them at high velocities, but also to protect them from the potential of injury due to diving for a ball with arms outstretched and repeatedly landing hard on the ground with their arms otherwise preoccupied. To help protect soccer goalies, their goalie shorts (or pants) are often built with built-in padding on the hips and knees. A soccer keeper jersey will also likely have some padding on the elbows.

Probably the most important piece of equipment for a soccer goalie has to be their goalie gloves. Created with soft leather or synthetic material and soft, tacky, sp0ngey palms, goalkeeper gloves help take the sting out of hard shots and flying soccer balls, while also ensuring a good grip regardless of the weather conditions. The highest quality soccer goalie gloves will not last very long as they are so soft and delicate they disintegrate with hard use. However, you can still get some very good gloves at a fair price that will last you plenty long, if you simply take reasonably good care of them. And it is highly recommended that you do because a good pair of goalie gloves can be a soccer goalies best friend!