Alex Morgan can easily rattle off the colors of the headbands worn by her United States teammates.
She wears pink, as does Rose Lavelle. Sophia Smith likes black. Julie Ertz prefers a shade closer to Tiffany blue. Lindsey Horan wears red, mostly because Morgan doesn’t.
“One of the first times I wore pink, someone said I’m trying to copy Alex Morgan,” Horan said.
Morgan laughed. “I never knew that,” she said.
Soccer’s favorite headband, though, isn’t a headband at all. The sheer colored strips keeping some of the world’s best athletes’ hair in place is actually what is known as pre-wrap — a thin, stretchy medical gauze intended to be wrapped around injured knees or ankles before they are taped, in part to protect the skin.
And while both men and women long ago co-opted the athletic dressing for a more prominent purpose in their hair, Morgan and other women’s soccer players have turned pre-wrap into a symbol of women’s sports — and soccer in particular — to accent their team kits and express individuality on the field.
“There is a kind of unique, almost strategic use of pre-wrap in women’s soccer,” said Rachel Allison, a sociology professor at Mississippi State who has studied how the sport has marketed itself. “Obviously, wearing the headband…
