Tips When Buying Soccer Goals

When you have been playing soccer for a few years, and perhaps have started thinking about building a team to play in competitive amateur leagues, one of the first things you will need to invest money in is a set of soccer goals. The size and type of goals you will need, of course, depends on whether you are going to compete in an indoor league or an outside field soccer league.

So the first tip is to make sure you know which size of product to buy when shopping for goals. If you play football on grass, your age will be a deciding factor. Unless your league is for juniors - players aged under 12 years - you will need to go for full sized professional goals. These will be 8 ft tall and 24 ft wide. They are normally very sturdy, constructed from steel or aluminum tubing, and may be either round or rectangular in cross-section. It is best to opt for the round ones.

Various sizes of indoor soccer goals are in current use. Some are 6.5 ft in height and 12 ft in width. You'll need to know the exact rules of the league you will be joining; in many indoor soccer leagues, the rules do not allow the ball to go above head height, so no headers are allowed, and therefore it would be impractical to use tall goals! There are however, shorter indoor goals available, which are still 12 ft wide, but lower in height, usually between 3 ft and 4 ft tall. These are ideal if your league doesn't allow the ball to go above the head; basically, if the ball hits the net, it's a goal. If you were using the 6.5 ft tall goals and a shot hit the crossbar and went in, that would have to be disallowed (unless of course both teams comprised of ex-basketball players all of whom are 7 ft tall!); and there would be intermediate cases that might lead to arguments!

This leads onto a separate tip about joining a league: make sure you join one that employs referees, rather than playing games using player consensus; this will ensure the official's word is final and prevent any arguments.

The final tip, whichever goals you eventually select, is always to deploy them with the safety of players and spectators in mind. Make sure that outdoor metal goals are securely sunk into the ground to the correct depth so that they cannot fall over and hit anybody. The indoor soccer goals are generally more lightweight and portable, usually made of plastic, and should be safe to use; of course, if you use the lower height goals, there is also less likelihood of them toppling over and hurting someone.

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