Football (soccer) is a contact sport, although rule changes in recent years have meant that less contact is tolerated these days than in previous decades. This contact element, plus the sheer physical effort required, dies mean that injuries are fairly commonplace, though thankfully they are usually not as serious as you might expect from a full contact sport such as rugby.

To avoid injury, there are a number of precautionary measures that you can take. I'll assume here that we're talking about either adults playing amateur football (eleven-a-side or five-a-side) or kids playing in school or in the park.

Warm up properly before the match:
At amateur level, a lot of injuries are muscle tweaks that occur because players start playing without doing a warm up routine. Make sure that you do stretching exercises and some gentle jogging followed by a few short sprints. This will significantly reduce your likelihood of injury. An added benefit is that it's likely to improve the way you perform!

Doing a warm up routine becomes increasingly important as you get older, and can help you avoid pesky things like a sprained groin!

Wear shin pads:
Shin pads are usually compulsory in eleven-a-side matches. There is a very good reason for this. Slide tackles are allowed and a slightly mistimed tackle (if you're not wearing shin pads) could easily result in a badly broken leg.

I'm recommend the shin pads that also provide ankle support but you can also get ones that just protect your shins.

Five-a-side players, however, often opt not to wear shin pads. Whilst slide tackles are outlawed in this format of football, there is always the risk of a mistimed tackle, so I would always recommend wearing shin pads as a precautionary measure.

Wear gloves (if you're the goalkeeper):
A very obvious one but gloves can help a goalkeeper avoid hand injuries. Keepers may also wear trousers and long sleeved shirts, which is especially recommended if playing on astro turf.

Don't tackle near the walls in five-a-side football:
Five-a-side matches are often played in halls that have hard walls on each side of the pitch. It's usually sensible to have a rule that says that hard tackles aren't allowed when a player has the ball by the wall. Otherwise you'll get instances of people hitting their head on the wall, which I can attest (from personal experience) is very sore!

Learn to when to pull out of a challenge:
Some players pick up a lot of injuries because they are

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