How have sagged shorts become a thing among footballers? Lamine Yamal, Calvin Bassey and Edon Zhegrova are doing it like Martin Cáceres

Sagging, in fashion, is the practice of wearing pants lowered below the waistline. It is a controversial trend, whose meaning has often been the subject of debate over the years. The most widely accepted version suggests that this style spread within the hip hop scene and, consequently, among writer subcultures. In reality, the origin of the phenomenon seems to date back to prisons, where inmates were forced to remove their belts to prevent their use as blunt weapons.

But how did this trend even make its way into the world of football? Who were the first to adopt and spread it? Before 2025, we can’t really speak of a wave of footballers in the major European leagues launching this trend; however, if we had to identify one player recognizable precisely for sagging, that name would be Martín Cáceres. Expanding our view to other leagues, some users—under a video posted on our TikTok channel—pointed out that the Mexican team’s trio Santos Laguna (Ludueña, Vuoso, and Chucho) could be considered among the pioneers of this style.

The sagging trend in football today

Today, the main promoters of sagging are three: Lamine Yamal, Calvin Bassey, and Edon Zhegrova. For each of them, wearing their shorts low, for different reasons, produces a different effect.

Let’s start with Yamal: from his shorts, which hang below his underwear, comes the full attitude of the player—almost cocky in his skills and in the way he communicates, both with teammates on the pitch and on social media. For Yamal, wearing his shorts this low is almost a sign of defiance, as well as a generational marker, typical of someone born in 2007.

It’s a different story for Calvin Bassey, who wore them so low in the match that made him recognizable for this distinctive trait, that he almost looked like he had been given shorts two sizes too big. There isn’t a recent picture circulating online where he is seen wearing his shorts in the standard way. In short, the doubt that it was just a size error in the 1-1 game between Fulham and Brighton has been dispelled: even with the national team, the Nigerian defender born in Aosta doesn’t seem to have any intention of pulling them up. And yes, by now we’ve figured out that his underwear brand is Calvin Klein.

Finally, we come to Edon Zhegrova. In his first appearances with Juventus—against Borussia Dortmund, Hellas Verona, and Atalanta in these opening weeks of the 2025/26 season—the winger wore his shorts really low. Thanks to his technique, his physique, and his athleticism, Zhegrova showed how sagging can distort—amplify or reduce—the perception one has of an athlete and his abilities. A winger with a low center of gravity and exquisite technique, with his sagging shorts and socks pulled all the way up (just like Martín Cáceres!) he seems to move in a completely different way, almost dragging his stride, to the point where the ball, while dribbling, appears to disappear. For Zhegrova, those sagging shorts become like a magician’s cloak, ready to make objects vanish to captivate the audience.

In short, sagging has officially returned to football and, for one reason or another, remains a strong and distinctive peculiarity for certain players.