Women's Soccer Shorts Guide

Soccer — association football, a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players — is played mostly in shorts. Most of the players wear short pants; the goalie often wears long pants, the visible exception that confirms the shorts as the standard kit. Soccer shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper legs, cut to reach the thigh or toward the knee without covering the whole leg.

That definition hides the garment's one real specification: a soccer short must never interfere with a kick. This guide covers how kit shorts and practice shorts differ, inseam and cut choices, the lightweight fabrics the position requires, and how shorts are supplied and fitted as part of the uniform system alongside the shirts and socks covered on their own pages here.

Kit Shorts and Practice Shorts

In league games you will most likely be provided shorts from your club as part of your team uniform, matched to the shirt in color and maker; for practices you may have to supply your own, depending on your league. Kit shorts carry the club's color discipline and are usually unnumbered or numbered to match the shirt. Practice shorts are the same garment without the ceremony, and most players own several, because they are washed after every session and are among the hardest-worn items in the kit bag.

Brands producing women's soccer shorts include adidas, Nike, Puma, Umbro and Under Armour, and they cut women's shorts as their own pattern rather than a shrunken men's short: a waist that sits correctly, a rise built for a kicking stride, and hems that do not flare. Team-issue and retail versions of the same short are usually identical in fabric, differing only in badges and lead time.

Length, Cut and Freedom to Kick

Women's soccer shorts should be an appropriate length that allows full movement and comfort while running and kicking, which in practice means an inseam long enough to stay in place and short enough never to catch at the knee. Modern women's inseams cluster in the mid-thigh range, with player preference and league custom setting the exact point. Side vents or a split hem at the outer thigh add the last increment of stride and are worth having on any short worn for matches.

Test a short by the game it serves: sprint, high kick, lunge and sit. The waistband should stay where it started through all four, the leg should not bind at the top of a kick, and the fabric should not wrap or cling when damp with sweat. A drawstring inside an elastic waist is the standard security system and should be tied, not decorative — a short that migrates downward during a match is a distraction a player feels on every single run.

Fabrics: Light, Wicking, Hard-Wearing

Soccer shorts are made from lightweight woven polyester, usually a microfiber or interlock knit variant, engineered to wick sweat and dry between sessions. Mesh side panels or a mesh inner brief appear on some models; many women's soccer shorts are worn with separate compression or under-shorts beneath, which is a matter of player preference and league rules rather than construction. The fabric must also survive sliding: a good pair tolerates grass and turf contact without pilling into roughness in a month.

Weight is a genuine specification here. A waterlogged heavy short changes how the last twenty minutes feel, which is why match shorts use the lightest fabrics in the kit and why cotton shorts, however comfortable in the shop, are the wrong purchase for play. Practice shorts can trade a little of that lightness for durability and pockets — one of the few places in soccer kit where a pocket is welcome, for the walk to the field rather than the game on it.

Fit and Care

Fit soccer shorts by the waistband and the kick test, not by eye on a hanger. The waist should hold on the drawstring alone without the elastic being stretched to its limit, and there should be ease through the hip and thigh without billowing. Women's sizing in team kit is worth insisting on where a club offers it; a unisex short in a smaller size is not the same garment, and the difference shows at the waist and rise first.

Care mirrors the shirt's: wash after every wear, inside out, cool, without fabric softener so the wicking finish survives, and hang dry. Shorts dry fastest in the kit and are usually the item players own in multiples for exactly that reason. Beyond the wardrobe is the game's wider world — the U.S. Women's National Team, the NWSL and NCAA women's soccer — where the same kit, at its highest specification, is on display every week of the season.

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