Ankle Sprains in Youth Soccer: Recovery Time, Re-Injury Risk, and What Prevents the Next One

Most soccer ankle sprains are the same injury: the foot rolls inward, the ligaments on the outside of the ankle take the load, and the player limps off. In a large surveillance study of US high school sports, between 4 and 5 in 10 soccer players with an ankle sprain were back inside a week. The part that gets handled badly is what happens next — because the ankle that has been sprained once is the one most likely to go again, and the training that prevents that is the part almost everybody skips.

This is the stretch of the season when it starts showing up: five or six weeks into the fall, games outnumbering practices, the ground getting firmer. Here is what the research says about how common these are, how long they take, and the one intervention with the strongest evidence behind it.

How common are ankle sprains in youth soccer?

Common enough that soccer sits near the top of the table. Researchers at UNC Chapel Hill and the Datalys Center tracked 9,320 ankle sprains across 31.5 million athlete-exposures in 16 US high school sports between 2011–12 and 2018–19 — an athlete-exposure being one athlete in one practice or game.

Girls' soccer ranked third of the sixteen sports, at nearly twice the rate of boys' soccer — a difference the authors report as a rate ratio of 1.91. That echoes the pattern we covered in ACL injury prevention in youth soccer, though ankle sprains are far more frequent and far less dramatic.

One caveat worth holding onto: this is high school data from schools that employ an athletic trainer, and it counted only sprains that kept a player out 24 hours or more. The authors say plainly it "may underrepresent the actual burden." Plenty of rolled ankles never make the count.

Why does the ankle roll in the first place?

Not usually in a tackle. Across all sixteen sports, 39.5% of ankle sprains came from contact with another person and 35.0% were noncontact.

In soccer, the most frequently reported mechanism was the least cinematic one available: foot inversion during general play — 11.6% of boys' soccer ankle sprains and 9.4% of girls'. Next came foot inversion while defending, then while handling the ball. Nobody hit them. The foot just turned under on a plant, a turn, or a divot.

That matters because it changes what prevention looks like. You cannot coach a child out of being kicked. You can train the ankle to survive an awkward landing.

The anatomy is equally consistent: 85.2% of all ankle sprains in the study involved the lateral ligament complex — the ligaments on the outside of the ankle. Around 22% involved the high ankle, which is slower to recover from.

What does the guidance say to do first?

The instinct is to immobilise — wrap it, keep them still. For the ordinary grade I and II sprains that make up most of them, the evidence points the other way. The National Athletic Trainers' Association position statement on ankle sprains makes it a Category A recommendation, their strongest evidence grade: "Functional rehabilitation is more effective than immobilization in managing grade I and II ankle sprains."

That is guidance for clinicians, not a home protocol — and it assumes somebody has established that it is a grade I or II sprain. Which is the next question.

When does a rolled ankle need a doctor?

Get it looked at properly when any of these are true:

• Your child cannot put weight on it — not "it hurts to walk," but genuinely cannot take steps on it
• The pain is over bone — the bony knobs on either side of the ankle, or along the outer edge of the foot — rather than over the soft tissue below and in front of them
• There is obvious deformity or rapid, severe swelling
• It is not improving over the first several days, or it keeps giving way afterwards

In a still-growing player there is a specific reason not to self-diagnose this one. The growth plates around the ankle sit close to where a sprain hurts, and telling a ligament injury from a growth-plate injury is a clinical call that needs hands on the ankle — sometimes an X-ray. Clinicians use validated decision rules, based on exactly where the bone is tender and whether the child can bear weight, to decide whether imaging is warranted. Parents don't have to make that call, and shouldn't — the same conclusion our guide to growing pains, Osgood-Schlatter and Sever's disease reaches. "Probably fine" is a reasonable parental read. It is not a diagnosis.

How long before they play again?

Here is the distribution from the high school study, for soccer specifically:

The remainder — roughly 10–12% — were recorded as other, missing, or season-ending.

So the honest answer to "how long?" is that a bit under half are back inside a week, most of the rest inside three, and a small minority are out a month or more. The systematic review discussed below cites an average return to sport after a lateral ankle sprain of 16 to 24 days across the literature.

High ankle sprains are the exception worth knowing about: only 33.5% were back inside a week, and 9.5% were out beyond 21 days — nearly double the overall rate.

Why the second sprain is the one that matters

This is the part that gets missed.

In the high school data, 14.5% of ankle sprains were recurrences — and 60.4% of those repeated an injury from a previous school year. The authors note their figure sits at the low end of published estimates, which range from 12% to 47%, because non-time-loss injuries weren't captured.

Then there is the finding that should stop a parent short. Recurrent ankle sprains were returned to play faster than first-time sprains — 48.0% back inside a week, versus 43.9% of first-timers. The researchers flag this directly, calling for "further investigation of strategies… to ensure that sufficient participation-restriction time is granted for recurrent ankle sprains."

The previously sprained ankle is the one being rushed. It should be the one given the most time. The long-term stake is chronic ankle instability — the ankle that keeps giving way — which the literature estimates develops in up to 40% of people after a sprain, and which is associated with joint degeneration later.

What actually prevents the next one?

Two things, and they are not the ones most families reach for.

Balance and neuromuscular training. NATA grades this Category A twice over: balance training "should be performed throughout rehabilitation and follow-up management of ankle sprains to reduce reinjury rates," and clinicians "should implement a multi-intervention injury-prevention program lasting at least 3 months that focuses on balance and neuromuscular control to reduce the risk of ankle injury."

Note the duration. Three months, not three sessions.

A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis in PLOS ONE pooled 14 randomised trials covering 2,182 participants and found exercise-based rehabilitation cut the odds of re-injury at 12 months against usual care — an odds ratio of 0.60, with a confidence interval of 0.36 to 0.99 that only just clears significance. The trials were in adults, and the authors are candid that there isn't yet enough data to say what the optimal programme contains. What the programmes did contain is consistent: postural balance work in all but two of the fourteen, and single-leg stance exercises in nine of twelve.

Single-leg balance work is unglamorous, needs no equipment and takes minutes — which makes it a natural thing to attach to something already happening daily. Structured home sessions, whether from a club programme or an app like FlickTec, mostly help here by making a small, boring, repeated thing actually get repeated.

Bracing or taping, for players with a history. NATA is specific, at Category B: "Athletes with a history of previous ankle sprains should wear prophylactic ankle supports in the form of ankle taping or bracing for all practices and games." Both lace-up and semi-rigid braces work. Note the qualifier — this is for the player who has already sprained it, not every child.

One more benchmark, also Category B: before returning to sport-specific work, the injured leg's functional performance should reach at least 80% of the uninjured leg. "It doesn't hurt any more" is not the same standard.

None of this replaces the basics — our soccer warm-up routine for youth players and broader guide to preventing soccer injuries in youth players cover the rest of the picture.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a sprained ankle take to heal in a young soccer player?

In US high school soccer data, 46.7% of boys and 40.6% of girls returned to participation within 7 days, roughly another 38–40% within 7 to 21 days, and about 5–7% were out beyond 21 days. The wider literature cites an average return to sport after a lateral ankle sprain of 16 to 24 days. High ankle sprains take longer — only a third were back within a week.

Are ankle sprains more common in girls' soccer than boys' soccer?

Yes, by a wide margin in the high school data. Girls' soccer recorded 4.96 ankle sprains per 10,000 athlete-exposures against 2.59 in boys' soccer — a rate ratio of 1.91. Girls' soccer ranked third-highest of the 16 sports studied, behind only girls' and boys' basketball.

Should my child wear an ankle brace for soccer?

If they have sprained that ankle before, the evidence supports it. The NATA position statement recommends athletes with a history of previous ankle sprains wear prophylactic taping or bracing for all practices and games, and notes lace-up braces, semi-rigid braces and traditional taping all reduce recurrence. For a child with no history of ankle injury, there is no equivalent blanket recommendation.

What causes most ankle sprains in soccer?

The foot rolling inward during ordinary play, rather than a tackle. Foot inversion was the single most frequently reported mechanism in both boys' and girls' high school soccer. Across all sports studied, about 35% of ankle sprains were noncontact and 85.2% involved the ligaments on the outside of the ankle.

When should a rolled ankle be X-rayed?

That is a clinical decision, not a parental one. Seek assessment if your child cannot bear weight, if the tenderness is over bone rather than soft tissue, if there is deformity or severe swelling, or if it isn't improving after several days. Growth plates sit near the injury site in young players — a specific reason to have a still-growing athlete's ankle assessed rather than assumed.

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The uncomfortable summary is that a first ankle sprain is usually minor and a second one usually isn't — and the gap between them is where the decisions get made. Give the first one its full time, do the balance work for longer than feels necessary, and brace the ankle that has already gone once. That is most of the job.