Across Mexico, a co-host of the 2026 World Cup, football pitches are laid out wherever communities can find space.
On town edges, highway underpasses, and even in a volcano crater, cleared spaces allow people young and old to share in the dream of the beautiful game.
In an impoverished Monterrey neighborhood, 14-year-old Humberto Guadalupe—nicknamed “Messi”—spends weekends on the community’s only football field, surrounded by abandoned cars and dirt roads.
Inspired by the legendary Argentinian player, he dreams of turning professional, encouraged by his grandmother.
“One way or another, it’s going to happen,” says Humberto. “Even when we lose a match, we keep our heads up.”
To the south, on the outskirts of Mexico City, families arrive by car, motorcycle, bicycle, and on foot to watch matches at the “Field of the Gods”—a pitch inside the crater of the extinct Teoca volcano.
Mist moves between pine trees and fruit orchards framing the field, nearly 700 meters above the capital.
Built by the community over 60 years ago, it is used by amateur local teams on Sundays.
In nearby Xochimilco, players ride traditional trajinera boats along canals, crossing chinampas—ancient agricultural plots that sustained the Aztec capital.
They head to some of Mexico City’s last natural grass pitches, located inside a UNESCO World Heritage site.
While these pitches are an important social hub, scientists say their creation can damage the area’s ecology and the habitat of the endangered axolotl salamander.
Though separated by landscape and distance, these matches share a common rhythm: communities building spaces around football in places shaped by hardship, geography, and memory.
A Canvas of Diverse Pitches
Photographer Raquel Cunha spent three months capturing amateur matches across Mexico City and beyond, mostly shooting on Sundays.
She selected subjects by examining the city on map apps, choosing 15 to photograph with a drone.
Of these, she focused on two in Mexico City and one in the industrial north, contrasting gritty Monterrey, a green mountainous suburb, and a historical canal neighborhood.
In the Tlatelolco housing complex, the Sharkes community-led team uses a painted pitch to promote sport within the LGBTQA+ community.
Near the Teotihuacan pyramids, hot air balloons drift over a football field.
The Alberto ‘Chivo’ Cordova University Stadium doubles as a giant canvas with the “Aratmosfera” mural by artist Leopoldo Flores Valdés.
At Avioneta Park in Ecatepec, a small aircraft sits beside a barrio soccer pitch. The Luis Donaldo Colosio pitch features the Xico volcano crater as a backdrop.
Compact synthetic mini-pitches are increasingly common in dense cities like Monterrey. The University Olympic Stadium, a UNESCO site, remains a historic arena.
Neza 86 Stadium, built for the 1986 World Cup, rises from the crowded outskirts. Los Pinos pitch sits in Monterrey’s Cerro de la Campana.
Finally, a rooftop pitch on a Costco building in Santa Fe incorporates recreation and sustainability with a green roof of native plants.
