Soccer Bags 101
Buysocceruniforms is proud to carry a full range of soccer bags. Whether your high school soccer team or travel soccer club needs backpacks, duffels, ball bags, or sack packs Buysocceruniforms can provide your team with the newest and most popular soccer bags from adidas, Nike, Puma, Umbro, Joma, and many other brands.
Buysocceruniforms uniquely understands how marvelous bags really are. Veteran customer sales representative Jeff Foor sat down with Buysocceruniforms to discuss his 23 years of experience in the team soccer industry and his passion for bags of all sorts.
BSU: So Jeff, you have been in this industry for a while, how have soccer bags changed and developed during your tenure?
Jeff: Well, that is a big question to answer. In fact, I am going to answer that question with another question, “Were bags even around 20 years ago?” I mean when I got started in this industry kids would carry their cleats and warm-ups on a sharp stick to soccer matches and practices. The sharp sticks sure came in handy if a fight broke out but it was hard to move your gear to and from the field. Not to mention you couldn’t even carry a soccer ball with you, you just had to kick it along the ground in front of you. But around the time Iran-Contra broke we started to see a lot of soccer bags hit the market.
BSU: Do you think the Iran-Contra scandal had anything to do with an emerging soccer bag market?
Jeff: I wouldn’t doubt it. Between me and you, I always suspected that the Contras were funneling money back into soccer bag manufacturers but I never pressed into the hunch, a lot of people in the soccer team sport industry went missing during the Reagan administration for asking too many questions. I probably shouldn’t have said all that, can you just strike that from the record before this gets published?
BSU: We certainly can honor that request.
Jeff: Thanks.
BSU: Getting back to soccer bags, would you say the emergence of soccer bags has changed the game at all?
Jeff: In a sense soccer bags changed literally nothing about the game of soccer itself. What I think soccer bags did was change the way people transported soccer uniforms, cleats, and so on and so forth. I mean the bag has been around for a while, probably 40 or 50 years I’d say, but it never got much further than carrying groceries and small French lap dogs. Someday somebody must have seen the light and said, “Hey, I don’t need to carry all my soccer gear around on this stick when I have this perfectly good burlap sack or golf bag or whatever.” The rest is history.
BSU: That is fascinating. What are the major manufacturers releasing in terms of new styles for soccer bags.
Jeff: Well, with soccer bags there are two main styles, the backpack and the duffel. And just about every major brand is making bags in both of these styles. Adidas has the Estadio II and Scorch team backpacks in just about every color you can imagine. These adidas soccer backpacks have ball compartments; mesh side pockets and main compartments large enough to store a warm-up jacket, cleats, and whatever else you might need close by. In terms of duffel bags, adidas has the Scorch, Striker, and Defender styles in a variety of sizes right for every player.
Nike has their own team backpack, the Nutmeg, which also has an external ball compartment and specially designed shoulder straps to bear weight better. In duffel bags, the Club style is a great option for the soccer player who needs enough room for all their gear and wants to look good carrying it. Additionally, Nike is still producing the Brasilia 5 duffel bag, a perennial classic!
Joma Sportwear has been producing some excellent bags as well. The very popular Diamond Backpack comes in a few colors and includes a free Joma ball (size 3,4, or 5) for a great low price. The Joma Travel duffel bag comes in two sizes and will make packing for away matches convenient and easy. And those options just scratch the surface, I haven’t even mentioned sackpacks, knapsacks, rollers, or ballbags; I could go on but I won’t.
BSU: Jeff, thank you so much for talking to Buysocceruniforms about soccer bags and sharing some of those candid thoughts on the Reagan administration. Is there one last word you would like to leave our readers with?
Jeff: Well, my grandfather who was a proud Bavarian farmer had a saying that has sort of guided me through life. He would always say, “Wenn Sie Ihre Eier statt in eine Tasche, werden sie nicht Kartoffeln werden aber immer noch auf Markt kommen“, which when translated means something like “If you place your eggs into a sack, they will not become potatoes but they may arrive at market.“
BSU: Well, you certainly have left us all something to mull over for a while. Thanks Jeff.
