MONTERREY, Mexico, June 9 - In cities and rural districts across World Cup co-host Mexico, soccer fields appear wherever people can clear a patch of land. On the margins of urban areas, beneath highway overpasses and even within the hollow of an extinct volcano, communities set aside places where children and adults alike pursue the game.
In a poor neighborhood of Monterrey in the countrys north, 14-year-old Humberto Guadalupe, known to friends and family as "Messi," spends his weekends at his communitys lone soccer pitch. The ground is ringed by abandoned cars and dirt roads, and it serves as a focal point for local play. Like the Argentine player who inspired his nickname, Humberto hopes to turn his talent into a professional career; his grandmother supports that ambition. "One way or another, its going to happen," he says. "Even when we lose a match, we keep our heads up."
South of Monterrey, on the rural outskirts of Mexico City, another distinctive venue draws players and spectators. Families arrive by car, motorcycle, bicycle and on foot to watch matches at the playing area known as the "Field of the Gods," located inside the crater of the extinct Teoca Volcano. Mist drifts through pine trees and among fruit orchards that frame the pitch in the former crater, nearly 700 meters (2,300 ft) above the sprawling capital. The community built the field more than 60 years ago, and amateur local teams use it on Sundays.
In the canals and chinampas of Xochimilco, players take a different route to matches. They ride in traditional trajinera wooden boats along the boroughs canals and cross the chinampas - the ancient agricultural plots or floating gardens that helped sustain the Aztec capital centuries ago - to reach some of Mexico Citys remaining natural grass pitches. Those playing grounds sit inside a UNESCO World Heritage Site and function as important social hubs for the community. Scientists, however, caution that creating and using these pitches can damage local ecology and the habitat of the endangered axolotl salamander.
Despite their differences in landscape and proximity to the capital, these matches follow a similar pattern: local communities fashion playing spaces out of the places available to them, influenced by hardship, geography and shared memories. In Monterrey, that pattern is visible amid the grit of abandoned cars; in the volcanic crater it is evident among pine and fruit trees; in Xochimilco it is expressed through waterways and floating gardens.
Photographer Raquel Cunha spent roughly three months documenting amateur soccer across Mexico City and beyond, concentrating her work on Sundays when players congregate in large numbers. She selected subjects by scrutinizing the city on mapping applications, identifying a shortlist of 15 sites to photograph with a drone. From that list she chose two locations within the city and one in the industrial north to photograph on the ground as well, aiming to capture contrasts among environments she describes as gritty Monterrey, a green mountainous suburb, and a historic neighborhood of canals.
These informal pitches underscore how communities adapt limited space to maintain a popular national pastime. They serve recreational and social functions for residents of varying ages and backgrounds while also highlighting tensions between local use and environmental concerns in protected and ecologically sensitive areas.