If you've ever watched a men's professional soccer game, you may have noticed some players wearing an unusual accessory under their shirts. When players remove their jerseys at the end of the game or while celebrating a goal, some are wearing what looks like a sports bra underneath. When Kevin Csoboth of Hungary removed his shirt to celebrate the team's last minute victory over Scotland during Euro 2024, for example, he revealed a sports-bra-like harness (shown above).
Men's soccer players have been wearing these products for the last few years, as it turns out, but with and more eyes on the sport than ever, many viewers are getting their first look at them and are (understandably) a bit confused. So what actually is the "sports bra" under their jerseys? It's not there for pec support or to (although, hey, maybe it helps?). The "sports bras" worn by men's soccer players are actually GPS tracker vests.
Each vest has a tracker in the back that provides a ton of data for coaches, trainers, and players to learn from. You can spot it in the picture of Rafael Santos swapping shirts with Lionel Messi, below. According to , which sells them, GPS vests can measure how much and how hard the players are working, including things like "total distance, top speed, number of sprints, sprint distance, power, load, [and] intensity.
" In other words, after a tough game or practice, the coaching staff can immediately find out how much effort their players exerted and tailor subsequent training s.
