Across Mexico, a co-host of the 2026 World Cup, football pitches are laid out wherever communities can find the space. On the edges of towns, on highway underpasses, and even in a volcano crater, spaces are cleared that allow people young and old to share in the dream of the beautiful game.
In an impoverished neighbourhood in Monterrey, northern Mexico, 14-year-old Humberto Guadalupe, nicknamed “Messi” by friends and family, spends his weekends on the community’s only football field, surrounded by abandoned cars and dirt roads.
Just like the legendary Argentinian player who inspired his nickname, Humberto dreams of becoming a professional player one day, encouraged by his grandmother. “One way or another, it’s going to happen,” he says. “Even when we lose a match, we keep our heads up.”
To the south, in a rural district 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 football pitch inside the crater of the extinct Teoca volcano.
Mist moves between pine trees and fruit orchards that frame the pitch in the former crater, nearly 700 metres (2,300 ft) above the sprawling Mexican capital. Built by the community more than 60 years ago, it is used by amateur local teams on Sundays.
In nearby Xochimilco, football players ride in traditional trajinera wooden boats along canals and cross chinampas, the ancient agricultural plots or floating gardens that helped sustain the Aztec capital centuries ago.
They are heading to play on some of Mexico City’s last remaining natural grass pitches. Located inside a Unesco world heritage site, the pitches are an important social hub, but their creation can be damaging to the area’s ecology and the habitat of the endangered axolotl salamander, scientists say.
Though separated by landscape and distance, these matches share the same rhythm: communities building spaces around football in places shaped by hardship, geography and memory.
Teoca volcano
Photographer Raquel Cunha spent three months taking photos of amateur football matches across Mexico City and beyond, mostly shooting on Sundays when players are out in force. She selected most of her subjects by closely examining the city on map apps and choosing a shortlist of 15 to photograph with a drone.
Of these, she chose two in Mexico City, plus one in the industrial north to also photograph on the ground, with contrasting environments: gritty Monterrey; a green, mountainous suburb; and a historical neighbourhood of canals.
Tlatelolco
In this painted soccer pitch in the Tlatelolco housing complex, the Sharkes community-led team hold matches to promote sport within the LGBTQA+ community in Mexico City.
Teotihuacan pyramids
Hot air balloons drift over a football field near the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan on the outskirts of Mexico City.
Alberto ‘Chivo’ Cordova University Stadium
Here, the structure is the artwork.
This stadium doubles as a giant canvas: the “Aratmosfera” mural, by the renowned Mexican artist Leopoldo Flores Valdés, which is painted directly on to its arches and surrounding rock, blending art with architecture. Seen from above, it becomes a vast, continuous mural woven into the landscape.
Avioneta Park
In one of the most densely populated areas on the outskirts of Mexico City, at Avioneta Park in Ecatepec, a small aircraft sits beside a barrio soccer pitch.
Luis Donaldo Colosio
With the near-perfect circle of the Xico volcano crater, known locally as the “navel of the world”, forming a backdrop, this soccer pitch sits on Mexico City’s edge.
The view contrasts the clean lines of a sports field with the raw geometry of a volcanic crater.
Synthetic soccer
Such compact “mini-pitches” are increasingly common in dense Mexican cities, bringing organised football into residential spaces.
In Monterrey, where space is tight, football often finds a home in residential complexes like this one.
University Olympic Stadium
Declared a Unesco world heritage site, the campus around this stadium is considered a masterpiece of 20th-century architecture and urban planning.
Once the main venue for the 1968 Olympic Games, it remains one of Mexico City’s most historic sporting arenas.
Neza 86 Stadium
Built for the 1986 World Cup, the Neza 86 Stadium rises from the crowded outskirts of Mexico City, a fading arena where global football once met the city’s rapidly expanding edge.
Los Pinos, Monterrey
The Los Pinos football pitch in the Cerro de la Campana, Monterrey
Parque La Mexicana complex
This rooftop pitch on a Costco building in the Santa Fe business district of Mexico City is part of a layered urban landscape incorporating recreation and sustainability.
Beside it, a green roof with 21 native plant and grass varieties introduces a dense patch of vegetation into the concrete surroundings.
