What is it about?

Too much or too little shoe-surface traction can influence player performance and injury risk. One common mechanism associated with injury in football is rotation on a planted foot coupled with high levels of rotational traction at the shoe-surface interface. In this paper we test different football cleats or outsole types on a national team training pitch to see how they 'release' from the playing surface over a season. Grass species and climate / weather are shown to influence shoe-surface traction.

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Why is it important?

We show how weather, grass species, and type of football cleats / studs affect rotational traction at the shoe-surface interface.

Perspectives

Players can select football boot outsoles to match climatic and playing surface properties to reduce the magnitude of rotational traction at the shoe-surface interface. When returning to play after injuries with a rotational mechanism such as anterior cruciate ligament or ankle syndesmosis injury it is pragmatic to suggest rotational traction should be kept as low as possible.

Athol Thomson
Aspetar Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital

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This page is a summary of: Six different football shoes, one playing surface and the weather; Assessing variation in shoe-surface traction over one season of elite football, PLoS ONE, April 2019, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0216364.
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