The Glove Life – What Gloves am I Wearing?

So, now that I am signed on with this well-oiled machine that is SoccerCleats101, it probably is of the utmost importance that I let you all know what gloves I wear! When I began playing soccer again, I did not know that it would turn into a sort of profession, if you will.  Two years ago, I just wanted to get back into playing consistently on a team and be around the boys and compete! So at first, I tried many brands and types of gloves, as I did not know what exactly my preference was!

The first pair of gloves I really found a liking to were the Sells Hard grounds.  I got a pair of them for Christmas in 2011 from my mother (I picked them out myself, she had no clue what she was buying). I picked Sells because a fellow keeper friend of mine said they were HUGE in Europe, and naturally I wanted to be like the best! The gloves were roll fingered, which I now absolutely love due to the way I feel catching a ball and how it fits my size 10/11 hands.  However, the most important thing about them was that they were HARD GROUND gloves! As most people know, finding a grass field in Los Angeles is like finding a cool USC alumnus, it just doesn’t happen (go Bruins)! So because most games and training sessions are on turf, durability is key! The gloves lasted me for over 8 months in usable game condition, which was awesome!

[Find Sells Gloves on soccer.com]

Sells, just like every company, has several lines of gloves, with the more pricey gloves being I guess the “better” ones (and since you are on this site, you know the same to be with cleats. Two cleats look the same and one costs 60$ and the other costs 225$??) and the others being the “non-better” ones.  I have since transitioned into feeding money into the Sells Wrap Elite Tough Hard ground gloves, and the Wrap Elite Wet Grip Aqua gloves (for all the times it is rainy in California). They have a long bandage wrist, have solid airflow to the hands, and the hard grounds have a “Tuff All-surface” latex palm.  And I still love the roll fingers!

Besides the Sells, I am also a HUGE fan of a local company that is rapidly growing called Aviata.  With keepers such as Josh Saunders and even Pinto at Barcelona on their team, Aviata truly has a good things going.  I have a brand new pair of Stretta Light Brights, which is one of their most recent releases.  The gloves are favorites of mine because, quite frankly, they are for big paws.  They have a Hybrid flat-roll palm with a rolled thumb, and the grip is made for all-weather, and is very good in wet weather. My favorite feature is that in this glove, I wear a size 10 and take out the spines, which are easily removed by unzipping the zipper on backhand and pulling them out! I wore them in my first USL Pro game vs Charlotte, and had one of my best games ever! Big fan of Aviata and look forward to the future of the company and its gloves.

So there you have it, my likes! I am all about durability and the way a glove feels when the ball is coming in hot.  I have found that the aforementioned gloves feel great, look great, and last me on all the turfy and hard fields I train on!

Always remember… We didn’t choose the glove life, the glove life chose us!

Yours Truly,

AP