A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The past few years, women's soccer has shown itself to be a fast-growing sport. For example, November, more than 78,000 fans attended a match in London between the U.S. and English women's national teams. Now, unfortunately, along with that growth, the number of knee injuries are also rising. Here's Greg Echlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIREWORKS)
GREG ECHLIN, BYLINE: Fireworks foreshadow the kickoff at a Kansas City Current home match of the National Women's Soccer League. Defender Kayla Sharples felt like setting them off in celebration of her return from a serious knee injury. In 2022, she tore both knee ligaments, the ACL and the MCL.
(CHEERING)
ECHLIN: As a step toward trying to stay healthy, Sharples switched up her footwear. She wore cleats with something different - a flexible front stud in the toe area.
KAYLA SHARPLES: You cannot feel it, honestly, once you have them on your feet and you're cutting and you're moving and you're playing soccer. The whole purpose is that it can reduce that rotational force that causes a lot of mean ankle injuries.
ECHLIN: Sharples wasn't the only NWSL player to make a successful comeback last season. Kerolin Nicoli, a Brazilian standout and the league's 2023 most valuable player, also returned after tearing her ACL.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: Kerolin is staying down. She is in pain.
ECHLIN: According to a report released by the National Institutes of Health in 2022, almost 20% of collegiate and pro soccer players had a history of at least one ACL injury. Dr. Meg Gibson is a sports medicine physician at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She treats knee injuries from the youth level to professionals and says the most common among women's soccer players, the ACL tear.
MEG GIBSON: Having to tell a young athlete, even a professional athlete, that they have an injury that's going to take them 6-12 months to rehab and to get better is a very emotional discussion for everyone to have.
ECHLIN: A British government report last spring stated that the rise in knee injuries was due to systemic gender inequality in sports and specifically cited the lack of footwear designed for women. Sharples, the Kansas City Current defender, now wears cleats manufactured by a Maryland company called Caddix. CEO Jack Rasmussen, once a college football punter, says for too long, the issue has been ignored.
JACK RASMUSSEN: The common denominator is the cleats. So I wanted to give athletes a chance to lengthen their career and have safer games and practices. I just think it's wrong.
ECHLIN: Better footwear would suit Emily Luea of Prairie Village, Kansas. She's a physical therapist, plays adult-league soccer and is sidelined from an ACL soccer injury. Even worse, her 11-year-old daughter suffered an ACL tear, you guessed it, playing soccer.
EMILY LUEA: Clearly something needs to be done on it. I mean, the rate of women who tear their ACLs versus men is significantly higher. It's happening in younger kids.
ECHLIN: The NWSL welcomes the shoe changes, saying the league wants to keep players safe, noting innovations like this is crucial to protecting athlete health and performance.
For NPR News, I'm Greg Echlin in Kansas City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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