As Mexico prepared for a summer of football including the 2016 Rio Olympics and Copa America Centenario, Mexico City called on artists to adorn 64 massive soccer balls along the Paseo de la Reforma, a wide avenue that runs across the heart of the capital.
These photos, taken by Papa Bravo, illustrate the beauty, passion and love of the game in the country. The Balón CDMX balls measure nearly five feet in diameter.
With the United States preparing for a historic match against Cuba in Havana on Friday, we took a moment to speak with Brazilian photojournalist Gabriel Uchida. In 2014, he travelled to Cuba and "wasn't tough enough to drink Cuban rum the whole day for a week, so [he] decided to spend two days looking for football in the island."
The resulting images paint a picture of a beautiful, vibrant football culture that is still finding its footing in the world's game.
The Juventus Story: Black and White Stripes is the comprehensive story of the legendary Italian soccer club, chronicling the team’s dramatic journey alongside its longtime devoted owners, the Agnelli family. The book will be published in the United States on November 7th, when a documentary movie with the same title will be released.
As soon as Lionel Messi went for broke on his own body art, we knew that we’d reached peak tattoo in the world of soccer. The juxtaposition between Messi’s wholesome demeanor and his body modification might’ve been keenly felt by your grandmother, who now firmly believes that Messi lives on the edge of society, but tattoos are obviously less of a form of deviance and more of an accepted form of expression in today’s world.
At the height of his powers, Brazilian striker Adriano was an unstoppable force. Combing strength, size and technique, Adriano was a regular for the Brazilian national team while dominating in Italy’s Serie A. However, his battle with weight, addiction and personal loss ultimately curtailed his short career.
Looking back at his career, Lionel Messi must sometimes marvel at the stupendous fairy tale of his own life. Born to two factory workers in a town known (before Messi) for industry alone, he has risen into a stratosphere unimaginable to most – certainly to a quiet, diminutive boy from Roasario, Argentina.
We take a look here at his life in pictures, from his humble origins to his current status as perhaps the greatest player of all time.
Liverpool's biggest offseason addition (no offense to Joel Matip, Marko Grujic, Ragnar Klavan, Sadio Mane, Loris Karius, Georginio Wijnaldum or Alex Manninger) has been Anfield's new main stand, which, it must be said, looks excellent. Check it out:
I'm not an Arsenal fan, but you don't have to be an Arsenal fan to appreciate just how green the pitch at the Emirates is. Look at that thing. It's glorious.
Thursday's Champions League group stage draw yielded one matchup no football fan in the world will want to miss: Pep Guardiola's new club, Manchester City, versus his formative one, Barcelona. It won't be Guardiola's first return to his old stomping grounds. During the 2014-15 Champions League semi-finals, Guardiola's Bayern Munich came up against Barca.
When I was told to write a profile of Dutch footballer Anouk Hoogendijk, a defender for Ajax’s women's team, that emphasized why people would like her, I thought: impossible.
She doesn’t know her place. She has won the Dutch women’s league twice with Saestum, the Dutch cup once with FC Utrecht, and the FA cup once with the Arsenal Ladies.