Futebol: Urban Euphoria in Brazil

In Brazil soccer is more than just a sport. It is hope for a better future, a distraction from everyday life, creator of identity and community. If there is no ball around, people kick fruit or cans; when there is no field, they make one. Soccer marks the soul of the Brazilian people, as well as the image of city and landscape. Any land that is somewhat level and not overgrown or built up becomes a soccer field. Even though there may be a lack of meeting places, parks, or village centers, there is always a campo de pelada. In this volume, two Brazilian photographers seek and find soccer in places where one might not expect to find it. Leonardo Finotti creates a kind of inventory, showing pictures from his series Campos Sagrados, for which he traveled through all of Brazil, to neighborhoods rich and poor, to industrial zones, urban peripheries, and to the country, to take photographs from an elevated standpoint of temporary and "real" soccer fields and their surroundings. In his photo series Brasilieiros Futebol Clube Ed Viggiani accompanies his fellow countrymen everywhere where soccer is played or a team followed.