A couple of years ago in the Women’s College World Series (softball), a catcher took a hit to that area by a foul that bounced directly back into her. I guarantee that it made me wince.
If any woman needs protective gear, it has to be softball catchers.
Yes, and I have had the unfortunate experience of a whack from a stick. Not at all pleasant. But, while that may hurt a whole lot, a direct hit from a puck traveling 80+ mph can make you forget about thinking what you should name your children.
Way back when, football players wore cups. The pros started to play without them. It didn’t take too long for that to trickle down to college and high school. The interesting thing is that as a player rises on the competitive level he tends to play with less, and lighter, protective equipment.
Because of the obvious vulnerability, baseball catchers, hockey players (especially goalies) and boxers have to be well protected from direct, powerful hits. While it is different for males and females, it’s not an area that one wants to leave totally unprotected when it is very vulnerable to hard, direct hits.
Certainly not a cup.
There are whole websites full of funny pictures of male soccer players where a player is ‘flashing’ the audience because another player is pulling on his uniform. And it’s obvious that they aren’t wearing a cup.
Every hockey player on my team wears a cup, not in a jock, but in shorts that also help hold up your socks with velcro. Most women in my league don’t, although some do. the insert is like a flat cup, just a panel of hard plastic.
I’d rather play hockey with no helmet or gloves than no cup. A frozen piece of rubber flying through the air really hurts, not to mention a guy actively trying to kill you with a stick.
Is this true? I’m not calling you a liar-liar, but I can’t imagine that a shortstop or pitcher would go cupless.
mmm
I thought that alot of the infield did, at least a lot of the time. I remember one game where they announcer was snickering while he tried to explain an unexpected delay. A backup outfielder had been called to play third during a blow out, got near the base, looked at the closeness of the batters box, then ran back in the locker-room to get “re-equiped” as the announcer put it.
Most just wear the undershorts to keep everything in place and avoid muscle strains. Cups and Jockstraps aren’t really necessary.
Balls to the… balls… are just an unfortunate part of the game sometimes!
Tacklings are not part of normal soccer, players tackle each other in Rugby or American football, but not in soccer. Unless you play it with different rules, maybe like American football.
In Europe, soccer is not played with players tackling. Just pulling other player’s clothing is considered a foul already.
Not true for European soccer players, at least German ones. The protective clothing that soccer players wear are shin guards (because inferior teams sometimes think it’s worthwhile to take out a very good player with a kick even if it counts as foul).
Look at any time there’s a corner kick or an 11-m kick and the players form a wall: they all put their hands over their groins to protect the family jewels. If they had cups, they wouldn’t need that.
And if they don’t play hockey or similar where a cup is necessary, athletes wear boxers or brief = underpants, not special jockstraps. What would be the point? Either it’s a contact sport like hockey, then they wear a hard plastic cup; or it’s a no-contact sport like basketball, then they can wear normal underpants.
I don’t know what or where you played, but if you regularlytackled players, it’s not soccer according to the rules.
The rules for soccer are the same everywhere in the world, so it’s not played without tackles in Europe. If that was the case, European teams would look really, really bad against non-European teams. The prohibition of pulling on a player’s uniform is a different rule, it doesn’t imply that any contact is verboten.
To make sure that we’re talking about the same thing or even about the same sport, here’s a collection of fair tackles in soccer where contact occurs, but are rightfully not punished as fouls, let alone with cards:
May I assume that you don’t have first-hand experience with that kind of cups (i.e. male cups)? For perspective, I can offer an anecdote based on first-hand experience. In my college days, I used to wrestle judo. Now, since judo wrestling definitely is a contact sport a male wrestler may sometimes end up curled up in a very tight ball after a somewhat unfortunate miss from the opponent. In my days, it happened often enough that we sometimes joked about it, sometimes discussed best practice in treating the poor sod. Although wearing anything made out of metal hard plastic is prohibited during competition, I chose to use a cup occasionally during training (depending on which techniques we were rehearsing) and a jockstrap with a foam rubber insert during competition. Although the plastic cup definitely saved my balls a couple of times, the feeling of the cup’s edges digging into the area around the balls wasn’t very comfortable either and it was abandoned for the lined jockstrap.
tl/dr: I’d probably put my hands over my groin if I ever lined up to block a corner kick even if I were wearing a cup. If not for other reasons, then at least as a deeply rooted reflex.
Well. The good thing with a jockstrap is that it tucks the package away and less in harm’s way better than many ordinary undergarments do, especially if one prefers the boxer-type. How common the jockstrap is nowadays, I don’t know, but back when I was active I wasn’t the only one in the locker room wearing a jockstrap while training or competing.
I train muay thai and MMA, which surely have to be two of the sports with the most unintended nutshots (good ol’ trusty inside leg kick).
To report on the general level of groin protection, men generally seen wear jock straps with integrated plastic cups, while some prefer the thai-style style steel cups, which tie around the waist and connect to a thong between the legs. Any guy going to sparr into the ring without a cup is considered deserving of any Darwin award he might win.
Women often spar without groin protection, as the flick of a foot won’t cause the same amount of damage as it would to a guy. On the other hand, a solid strike from a misplaced knee will leave the best of them squirming on the floor, so don’t discount female groin shots. While not being the same vomit-inducing pain as incurred on men, there are still enough nerves going through that area to make it felt.
While competing, women will wear what is basically a jock strap without a pouch and a plastic inset which spreads the force of the blow. Additionally, padded sports bras are used to protect the breasts. Boob shots, while painful, aren’t as damaging or debilitating.
Also, I’d like to illuminate some posters to the fact that a cup doesn’t make its wearer immune to pain or damage to the groin area. While removing the whole element of direct contact, the human body is a malleable thing, and a cup will mostly disperse the force over a greater area. Believe me, that even with a cup, nobody wants to take a rock hard soccer ball directly to the nads. If you don’t believe me, watch UFC fights (where the match is paused for even minor groin strikes) or simply test the concept.
:smack: Overlooked this gem the first time.
Constanze, if you think that a protective wall is formed for a penalty kick, you really have no business in commenting on soccer rules.
It seems to me to be a very rare circumstance in which a woman being kicked right in the groin is more painful than being punched directly in the breast. You’d basically have to get a really lucky hit where you contact the clitoris directly — which, uh, some people can’t even manage if they’re trying, if you take my meaning. 
I’ve taken some serious crotch bangers while riding horses competitively – including one memorable instance in which the lady bits were bruised for 10 days and the force broke the skin – but the pain at the time the incident occured was nowhere near incapacitating, in fact I really didn’t realize I had injured myself until later. Possible that was the adrenaline. On the other than I’ve been socked in the boob - through a punching bag - painful enough to make me gasp.
Obviously I meant Freistoss in general, what wikipedia calls a free kick, and confused my terminology in English.
And the indirect free kick can be given for among others “„gefährliches Spiel“ ohne Gegnerberührung (z. B. mit gestrecktem Bein in den Gegner laufen)” = dangerous play without touching the opponent (eg. running into the opponent with straightened legs).
Like many people have pointed out, most sports don’t really leave women so exposed that a cup would be necessary.
However, female gymnasts do run a pretty good risk of straddling the beam (or occasionally the bars). A beam is 4" wide and has very little padding. I can definitely report that straddling the beam is quite uncomfortable, but I can’t imagine anyone wearing some sort of protective gear to minimize the risks.
Socked in the Boob
band title alert
Let’s put this to bed, as anyone who’s ever played soccer knows it is a contact sport. For example if both players are level and competing for the ball, but neither are in possession of the ball it is quite legal to shoulder barge the other player, when such situations occur it is very usual for one player to knock the other to the floor. This is not a foul let alone a yellow or a red card offence.
As a general principle in soccer the kind of contact that is forbidden is the kind where you attempt to ‘purely play the man instead of the ball’ (though in the olden days it was quite legal to barge a goalkeeper who was holding the ball over the line for a goal for example) and more within the last 20-30 years increasingly any kind of contact (or even play that doesn’t result in contact) deemed dangerous (i.e. likely to cause injury) has also been outlawed
Male soccer players don’t wear cups and tbh I’m not sure if it would be legal for them to wear cups. They may wear jock-strap style underwear, but it’s not regarded as essential.
Cricket is a sport where wearing a cup is regarded as essential for males (batsmen and wicketkeepers), I have to say I don’t know if female players wear cups, though I wouldn’t be suprised if they did given how dangerous cricket balls can be.