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In-depth conversations with the voices shaping culture, calcio, and society. Explore unique perspectives, personal stories, and inspiring journeys from around the world.
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All images by Sebastián Blanco Salazar
Over coffee in Lima, photographer Sebastián Blanco Salazar reflects on a year spent behind the lens with Universitario de Deportes—their three-peat triumph, the fans who never stop singing, and the spirit that turns the Monumental into a living, breathing force.
We meet in a small café in Lima, where the noise of the city slips in every time the door clicks open. Sebastián Blanco Salazar sits across from me, camera bag on the floor, still smelling faintly of last night’s smoke, sweat, and fireworks. He’s been following Universitario de Deportes—La U—throughout their season: at home, away, and through that historic night against ADT when they sealed a place in Peruvian football history.
He smiles when I ask him the most basic question, the one that every foreigner and every Peruvian outside the capital eventually asks:
What makes La U so unique?
What makes this club different?
Sebastián leans back, twisting the coffee cup between his fingers.
“Everyone says their club is special,” he says. “But La U… it’s something else. Its identity. It’s how you learn to fight even when everything is against you. It’s the idea that you battle for every ball until the last minute. And if there’s still one second left, well… you fight for that second too.”
He pauses, like he’s trying to find a simpler way to explain a whole universe of feeling.
“That’s why the phrase la garra crema exists. It’s not marketing. It’s life.”
The Club That Is More Than a Club
Universitario, he tells me, is carried by its people. Everywhere the team travels, fans pack the stadiums—entire families, generations wrapped in cream-colored shirts. But nothing compares to the Monumental.
“The Monumental is a fortress,” he says. “More than 60,000 people. On match days, it’s a volcano. It’s impossible to hear anything except the fans.”
He laughs. “I’ve been next to the pitch, trying to take photos, and I can feel the ground vibrating.”
The north stand—the infamous Trinchera Norte—sets the rhythm of the entire place. But Sebastián insists that the east stand, the older and more traditional supporter section, still holds its own. “When both sing together… forget it. You can’t think. You just feel.”
He remembers the Copa Libertadores match against Palmeiras. La U were losing badly, and yet—he mimics thousands of voices rising—they didn’t stop singing for a single moment.
“That’s the U,” he says softly. “Even in defeat, they don’t abandon the team.”
A Season on the Road
Sebastián was there for all of it: home games, late nights editing photos, and the long trip away to face ADT—the match that sealed the three-peat. He tells it quietly, like someone replaying a dream he can still feel on his skin.
“It was wonderful,” he says, but his eyes say more. “This was history. Their second three-peat. No team in Peru has won three consecutive titles twice.”
He shakes his head at the thought. “Do you understand what that means? For the club? For the country?”
But the moment he remembers most wasn’t the goals, or the celebrations, or the final whistle. It was a father and his seven-year-old son in the Monumental, days before.
“He told me he wanted his son to see what he saw when he was little. The team he loved, celebrating a third championship.” Sebastián, smiles. “That boy… he told me that if La U won, he’d be happy for the rest of his life.”
He stirs his coffee, watching the swirl as though it’s the stadium crowd.
“That joy—that shared joy between generations—how do you photograph that?” he asks. “How do you capture something you feel more than you see?”
He tries anyway. He always tries.
The Night Lima Shook
The night at Monumental when La U were presented with the title, it felt like a volcano was erupting. The noise was incredible. Tears, chants, strangers embracing like lifelong friends.
“It was indescribable,” Sebastián says. “Young fans, old fans, grandparents. People who had waited decades. People who had never known anything except the U winning.”
What he remembers most is the sound—wave after wave of it, rolling down from all four stands, lifting the players off the pitch.
“It felt like the stadium would burst and that the whole of Lima could hear.”
He laughs. “Maybe it did. Maybe it’s still in the air somewhere.”
Why It Matters
Sebastián gathers his things as our coffee cups sit empty. Outside, Lima’s afternoon heat presses against the windows. Before he leaves, I ask him why he thinks this season mattered so much, beyond trophies and statistics.
He doesn’t hesitate.
“Because football is ninety minutes,” he says. “But the feeling—what it gives people—that lasts much longer. It passes from father to son, from generation to generation. That’s why La U is La U.”
He stands, slinging the camera over his shoulder.
“And this year,” he adds with a grin, “they made history. Again.”
He taps the table twice, as if sealing the conversation like a photograph frozen in time.
Then he steps into the noise of the city—another match, another story, always waiting.
All our thanks to Sebastián Blanco Salazar
For Kate Carter-Larg, the Cheesy Toast Shack is a story of love, risk, hustling, triumph, tribulations, early mornings and late nights. It represents a dream that was worth putting everything on the line for. “We’d put all our savings into it, so failing was not an option,” Kate explains. “We hustled, we worked every day, we went to every event that was viable for us. We didn’t take on any staff until we were a few years in, we posted on social media every day, multiple times a day, and we shouted about our business and made people listen.”
Born in Dorset, in the South of England, the adventure of a lifetime would begin for Kate when she found herself travelling to Bali, in South East Asia. It was there she would meet Sam, her future husband and business partner.
“After a fleeting holiday romance, where we never thought we’d see each other again, he followed me down to Brighton (where I was living at the time). He decided he couldn’t live down there (distinct lack of surf) so got me to visit him in Scotland. I fell in love with it straight away, and pretty much decided to just not leave.
We had another year of travelling around a bit, including heading back to Bali to spend a few months of more beaches and surfing, before heading back to Scotland together with the idea of starting our own business.”
With only a small amount of savings between them, they knew that any kind of fixed cafe would be out of the question. “It just seemed so obvious, everyone loves a toastie, but not some dry, thin crappy Costa-style one. Instead, we wanted to do big, filthy, oozing with cheese-level toasties, with fillings that you don’t get just anywhere.”
With that idea, the wheels were set in motion. Scared, but with an unrelenting desire and determination to succeed, Kate and Sam put their life savings into everything and set off in search of their dream.
That dream would become a reality and take them all across the UK, to events, festivals and Glastonbury. They would be crowned Street Vendor of the Year, and earn the accolade of Scottish Street
Finalist. They would establish two sites, receiving visitors from all over the globe and go viral across social media. Renowned food critic, Jay Rayner, would give his seal of approval. Celebrities would come far and wide to taste their manchego with chorizo, red pepper and jalapeno chutney, or delight in their New Yorker made with sliced Swiss, pastrami, American mustard and sauerkraut. It would become a place that is now part of the family, with Kate, Sam and their two wonderful children.
It is a story that not even in her wildest of dreams could she have imagined. But it all happened. It really did. And it was a pleasure to sit down with Kate and talk about the journey she’s been on, her biggest challenges, being her own biggest critic and her proudest achievements.
We knew we wanted to be self-employed…we understood it’d be high risk and high stress, but we wanted to have a lifestyle where we could spend time together, and not have to answer to anyone else (we’ve always been quite headstrong and neither of us like being told what to do by someone else!)
We only had a small amount of savings between us, so we knew any kind of fixed cafe etc would be out of the question, so that immediately put us in the market for a food trailer. We just jumped on Gumtree and found a practically new trailer near Glasgow. A guy had bought it and then decided to not bother pursuing his burger van career, so we grabbed it and towed it back over to Fife.
We’d been looking at what was available street food-wise in Scotland, and the scene was starting to blow up. So many great options and traders, but no cheese toasties! It just seemed so obvious, everyone loves a toastie, but not some dry, thin crappy Costa-style one. Instead, we wanted to do big, filthy, oozing with cheese-level toasties, with fillings that you don’t get just anywhere.
Sam and I worked on the trailer, whilst getting everything else set up, and within a couple of months, we were good to go. We secured a pitch at a local beach and then would tow the trailer to events all over Scotland in between working Kingsbarns beach, to get the word out there about our brand and our business.
This did us wonders, as within our first year of trading we managed to secure a pitch at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where we got named the Best Place To Eat at The Fringe by The Scotsman newspaper.
Off the back of the popularity we experienced from being at such a huge event, we were in a position to apply for a pitch at the next Glastonbury Festival in Somerset. After doing this, our following took a massive jump, and we found we had people reaching out to us from all over the UK, saying they’d tried us and couldn’t stop thinking about our toasties.
During this time we were also doing every other event: street food markets, food competitions, music festivals, weddings….anything we could get our hands on. This eventually led to us then being offered the lease on our now main hub, in St Andrews. So at this point, we had our Kingsbarns pitch, our St Andrews kiosk, as well as multiple street food setups, allowing us to have 5 pitches across the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the years running up to Covid, making us the biggest independent traders across the city for the Fringe.
Covid was a huge challenge at first. There were grants for some hospitality businesses, however, because we sublet our kiosk we didn’t pay rates, and we weren’t entitled to the first few rounds of grants. So trying to keep our heads above water really was a challenge, bearing in mind we had staff to think about, and at that stage, a 1 year old as well.
As initial lockdown measures eased, we were able to open up shop again, and thankfully, the rules dictated by the Scottish Government just so happened to mean we didn’t need to change much about our operational setup. We were always a takeout unit, from a hatch. We just needed to work with fewer staff on shift at once to keep numbers down, but it was good for us that people were allowed to go for a walk and meet a friend outdoors, as that matched the description of what people did anyway when they’d come to one of our beaches.
It did, however, have a massive impact on the events industry, meaning it was the first time since we started that we weren’t doing any street food at all, or weddings. This obviously meant the income of the business took a massive hit, which was certainly a negative. However, in hindsight, it made us re-evaluate how lucky we were to still have the pitches we were able to trade from.
When the grants that we did qualify for eventually came out, we used that money to invest in the business, by upgrading our equipment. We bought a decent coffee machine, a soft-serve ice cream machine, and high-quality grills. We felt if we could get our products out at a much faster speed and even better quality, then we were utilising what we could, given the restrictions put upon us by the pandemic. And just to make things that little bit extra stressful, we decided it was a good time to have our second baby.
Our biggest achievement would have to be the Glastonbury Festival. We loaded up our campervan and towed our trailer all the way from Scotland. We were located at Worthy View which is the “posh” campsite at the top of the farm, with the pre-erected tents (not that we were allowed to stay in those).
We were only allowed the bare minimum of staff passes (the cost of a ticket per staff member is factored into your pitch fee so we couldn’t afford many). We got a few friends to come down with us to work, thinking we’d get to spend a decent chunk of the festival watching music and enjoying the festival…how wrong we were! We were mobbed from the minute we opened the hatch in the morning, doing breakfast toasties to the hungover masses, all the way through the day, with a small window where it quietened off when the headlining acts were on, and then went crazy busy again through to the early hours. We came back to Scotland exhausted but with an amazing feeling of pride and achievement.
Another of those pinch-me moments was when Jay Rayner, the famous food critic who writes for The Guardian / The Observer, came to visit us. He left a glowing review and then featured us in the Guardian’s best-value places to eat around the coast of the
Abi, who’s our manager at the St Andrews shop actually asked me the other day if I ever think how wild it is that people drive so far to come to our shack and hold it in such high regard. And that this is all for something that we have created. It really made me stop and think how cool that is. We’re so well received, and people really do make huge trips just to come and try our food. It’s very humbling, although I do still find myself being my biggest critic. If I know a famous person is coming down, I panic, and worry that they’ll just think “What’s all the fuss about?” However, that has not actually happened yet!
We love how, generally, everything is received really well on social media. We know we post a lot, but it’s paid off. Every single day we get at least one customer coming down to the hatch, to say they’ve come because they’ve seen our silly/cheesy videos online and it’s made them want to visit. We get the occasional troll which always blows my mind, but I just need to remind myself that our socials are free marketing, and it’s obviously working, because we get customers and followers from all over the world. Just this week alone, I’ve posted t-shirts and hoodies to New York, and Philadelphia
Our followers and likes have taken a huge surge in the last year since we’ve really picked up our efforts online. We find now that simply posting a photo of a toastie doesn’t get the same levels of interaction as when we post videos, so it’s just about continuing to follow trends and posting videos, and just trying to make our page something a bit silly and fun.
I would advise anyone looking to set up their own business, to just go for it. We always get people asking us “Weren’t we scared it wouldn’t work?” Of course we were, we’d put all our savings into it, so failing was not an option.
We hustled, we worked every day, we went to every event that was viable for us. We didn’t take on any staff until we were a few years in, we posted every day, multiple times a day, and we shouted about our business and made people listen.
I honestly don’t know if I’d have it in me now to hustle as hard as we did back at the beginning, but I’ve also got 2 small children now who I love spending time with, so I couldn’t be towing trailers back from Edinburgh at 1 am, as I love that I can be present for them and be the one that does every bedtime and that I get to see them every morning.
If I’m not working, I try to start the day off by getting to the gym. A couple of years ago, after having my youngest daughter, I got into CrossFit, which I just fell in love with. I’m still not very good at it but it helps my headspace as well as my physical fitness.
Sam and I try and get out for a walk together; our favourite place being Tensmuir Forest, where we love to stop for a crepe from Salt and Pine. We may have to answer a few emails/go and film some videos for the pages, and before we know it 3 o’clock rolls around and it’s time to grab our girls from school/playgroup
If they’ve not got after-school clubs then they may ask us to take them to the skatepark to practice their skateboarding. If it’s not a school day then we try and get them for a surf at West Sands (if there is any) followed by live music at Dook and a few Aperol Spritz’ for us. Whatever we do, it’s hugely family-oriented. With 7 cousins living close by, and 3 sets of aunties and uncles, as well as Sam’s parents, we’re invariably hanging out with other Largs.
Every Christmas we have raclette on the menu, which is raclette cheese, served over garlic potatoes with charcuterie meats and dressed salad. You basically scrape the melted cheese over the potatoes, and it’s just amazing. It’s such a treat, and can’t help but make you feel festive.
For the year ahead, we want to keep concentrating on giving the best possible products to our customers. We feel that we’re on a really positive trajectory at the moment. Our team’s collective hard work is getting more and more recognised, with a greater following online and more customers coming to the shops. We want to concentrate on keeping this at a high level, and who knows, if the market is right, maybe even opening up some more locations.
With all our thanks to Kate Carter-Larg
Latest
All words and images by Jonas Zöller
“We’re a family here — it’s fine, boys.”
There’s a certain magic in Buenos Aires — a pull that never lets you rest. Each day brings a new corner of the city, a new stadium, a new heartbeat. After a weekend spent chasing matches and moments, I head north through the winding streets of La Paternal — the humble neighbourhood that gave the world Diego Armando Maradona. Here, at Argentinos Juniors, football feels different. It’s smaller, closer, more personal. The red walls of the stadium seem to hum with memory, and every mural, every chant, every glance toward the pitch carries the weight of a legend.
City that Feels Like Home
After the triple header over the weekend, I finally have time to explore Buenos Aires. Maybe I’m still full of euphoria from the experiences in the stadiums, but somehow I immediately feel at home here. Argentina’s capital, with its avenues and parks, feels greener than the dull grey that dominates in Germany. I wander through the districts of Palermo and Recoleta, later through San Telmo and the city centre. The city feels modern with its glass towers and wide streets, and yet there’s this warmth I feel right away.
A few older men sit at a small kiosk drinking their coffee, while avocados and newspapers are sold along the streets. In the cafés, bars, and restaurants I visit, I’m welcomed openly. I often try my amateur Spanish and get even more amateur English in return. But people want to help, and we always manage to understand each other — sometimes in unconventional ways, but always with a laugh.
I get talking to a few Argentinians, and I only have to mention that I’m here because of football to see their eyes light up. The game is truly omnipresent in this city. Messi and Maradona greet me at every corner. You can buy souvenirs of both everywhere; there are statues, murals, shrines, and pictures of them in all the bars and restaurants.
The House of Diego
I head toward the stadium, and once I arrive, I quickly realise that Maradona is celebrated here on a completely different level. His portrait looks down from every wall; garage doors are painted, and the bars are overflowing with memorabilia. It feels like a mix of time travel and hero worship — and I love everything about it.
The stadium of Argentinos Juniors is also named after Diego Armando Maradona. The world champion and FIFA Player of the Century began his professional career here.
The stadium itself, with its slightly faded red paint, is surrounded by pure football nostalgia. The spirit of Maradona clearly floats through every corner. When we first enter the inside of the ground, however, we’re quickly pulled out of our nostalgic enthusiasm. We’re on the main stand, and it’s impossible to tell where we’re supposed to sit. Some seats have handwritten notes taped to them with all sorts of messages. A steward can’t help us, but soon an old man comes over and offers his help.
He speaks a few words of English, but we don’t quite manage to solve the question of our seats. After a few minutes of going back and forth, he makes it clear that we should just sit wherever there’s space, explaining, “We’re a family here — it’s fine, boys.” We still have some doubts, but there’s something in the old man’s voice that says, you’re part of this family today, too.
A Family of Football
At first, the block we’re sitting in feels a bit like a family section — fathers with their children, a few other older men next to us. But as the game starts, that impression changes immediately. There’s wonderful shouting and swearing. The chants from the opposite curva echo beneath the roof of the main stand and are taken up again and again by the fans around us.
We’re sitting extremely close to the floodlit pitch, and when, in the tenth minute, the stadium falls into collective clapping, I’m gone again — completely lost in the moment.
A Game that Doesn’t Matter
The only thing that can’t quite keep up with the atmosphere and the stadium is the match itself. The quality is poor, there are hardly any chances, and it ends inevitably 0–0. My euphoria, however, remains unaffected even after the final whistle.
Not only did I get to walk in the footsteps of a legend today, but it also feels as if Buenos Aires has now taken me into its arms — a city that seems to drip with football from every pore.
What could possibly be better?
You can follow Jonas on social media by clicking here
All Images by Mattia Mosè Molinari and Agustina Frias
A hot, unexpected Sunday in Buenos Aires. The sky had spent the previous days crying, still mourning the loss of Miguel Ángel Russo.
Agustina and I split up — she’s inside the cancha, I’m outside, walking through the streets of La República de La Boca. I let myself be carried away by the syncopated, pounding sound of the drums.
Everyone is wearing their Sunday best — their sacred attire — that lingering thought you’ve had for days: Which shirt will I wear? This year’s Paredes jersey, or that away shirt from the 97/98 season? It doesn’t really matter, as long as it has that crest embroidered close to the heart.
Inside, La Bombonera gives its all — pure love and chaos: 85,000 souls jumping with all their energy, screaming with all the voice they have.
That voice — the twelfth player on the pitch — a giant creature with only one mission: to defeat River and make them relive the ghosts of that 2011 match against Belgrano.
Fuera de la cancha, in every corner of La Boca, there is music, people dancing and shouting their hearts out, stopping only to let the band carrying the drums pass by — strengthening that wall of sound.
The blue smoke from the flares mixes with the smoke rising from the grills serving choripán, full to bursting.
The match finally begins. 4:30 p.m. I watch it on a small television at the corner of Suárez and Del Valle Iberlucea. Only the lucky few in the front rows can see the Superclásico properly; from the third row back, the sunlight’s glare and the broad shoulders of other fans block the view — but nobody seems to care.
We are about a thousand on this street — I feel part of this like never before in my life. The air is tense. At times, silence is broken only by the distant voice of the TV commentator. Everyone holds their breath.
Suddenly, Zeballos’ goal makes La Bombonera explode — then comes the second, and Merentiel sends the entire people into ecstasy. The ground shakes. The stands tremble.
And finally, the final whistle — a carnival of life.
A man who could be my father bursts into tears right in front of me. We look at each other for a few seconds, then he throws his arms around my neck. He squeezes tightly. I let him do whatever he wanted.
Like an ocean overflowing, the 85,000 from La Bombonera pour into the streets. No one wants to go home. Going home means ending this dream, and now everyone is out in the streets of La República de La Boca — kids trying to replay the action from the second goal, men and women hugging, dancing, singing, crying.
No one wants to go home because this is their home. This is where you have to be — in the streets of La República de La Boca.
At last, I want to share a phrase that I’ll carry with me forever, said by mi hermano Lucas:
“Boca siempre es familia, es amor, es pueblo y carnaval.”
All Images by Mattia Mosè Molinari and Agustina Frias
You can follow Mattia on Instagram here
You can follow Agustina on Instagram here
All our thanks to Mattia and Agustina Frias
Filmmaker Jannik Schlüter dives into Bogotá’s football fever — and finds himself lost in a sea of blue, white, and pure emotion.
When filmmaker Jannik Schlüter made his way to Colombia, he expected passion, colour, and noise. What he didn’t expect was to be completely swallowed by it — deep in the heart of Bogotá, inside Estadio Nemesio Camacho El Campín, for a showdown between Millonarios and Atlético Nacional.
“Nemesio Camacho actually isn’t the biggest stadium in Colombia,” Jannik recalls, “but you don’t really feel that when you’re there. Instead, you feel the intensity in the stands because it’s such a dense atmosphere. You literally have to fight your way to secure a place — at least in the ‘standing area’. It’s seats, but nobody sits.”
There, among the smoke, the chants, and the chaos, he found himself swept into something far larger than football.
“Even there you’ll find old men, young women — something you cannot escape from. They handed me a flag to wave for the choreography, which even after explaining three times that I had to take photos, they insisted on giving me. Well… the first 45 minutes I didn’t see anything but flags in front of me.”
It was full immersion — a living, breathing theatre of devotion.
“Millonarios are from Bogotá, making them a big club per se. But it’s also one of the most successful teams in Colombia, especially with their past glory. So when Nacional — who took over a little ever since the ’90s — come to play against them, it’s like Madrid against Barcelona.”
That clash of history and pride defines the fixture.
“Millonarios, being from the capital, have a slightly more elitist fan scene — more middle class. It’s a lot about tradition and prestige — almost nostalgic.”
Bogotá itself mirrors that intensity — sprawling and unrelenting.
“Bogotá is such a big city. It takes you forever to cross from north to south with the train — yet still you find fans all over the place. Interestingly, going to the stadium, it didn’t even seem like there was a game going on… until suddenly, after the next corner, everything was full of blue and white.”
Everywhere he looked, football was pulsing through daily life.
“There’s not a single day where you can’t hear or see a TV showing some kind of football.”
His advice to anyone thinking about experiencing Colombian football?
“People should definitely go watch a game — maybe opt for the west or east stands since it can get hectic with the more fanatic fans. Also, there are beautiful jerseys all around!”
And if you have time, he says, don’t stop in Bogotá.
“I’d also recommend going to a game in Medellín if there’s a chance. It’s a very different stadium. Seeing Nacional or Independiente in Medellín is also worth it!”
Bogotá was a window into the soul of Colombia — a place where the flags never stop moving, where the songs never fade, and where football is not simply watched, but lived.
Our thanks to Jannik Schlüter
All images by Jannik
“There’s something about that place that awakens a love for football in Espírito Santo.”
Founded in 1963, Desportiva Ferroviária carries a timeless tradition. Supporting “Tiva” is something that transcends generations — it’s passed down from father to son.
“Supporting the ‘Tiva’ is timeless,” says journalist Camila Müller. “It’s something handed down through family. I’m not a supporter of the Locomotiva Grená myself, but I am passionate about football in Espírito Santo, and it was my father, a former player, who helped me discover that love.”
Camila’s story, like so many in Brazilian football, begins with a ball at her feet. “I started playing football when I was very young, with the only dream of becoming a player,” she recalls. “Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. But I found another way to stay close to my dream — through sports journalism — and that’s the path I’ve been following ever since.”
The Energy of Araripe
Much has been said about the atmosphere at Estádio Engenheiro Araripe, and Camila insists its reputation is well earned. “Whether for the home team or the visitors, the energy is unique,” she says. “There’s something about that place that awakens a love for football in Espírito Santo and, inevitably, for Desportiva’s fans.”
One match in particular stands out in her memory — the 4th round of the 2025 Copa ES, when Desportiva faced their biggest rival, Rio Branco AC.
“A 4–0 win at home,” Camila smiles. “The fans’ celebration was beautiful — energy, singing, and pure passion — a living tribute to the football of Espírito Santo.”
A State Rediscovering Its Football
Camila believes that football in Espírito Santo is slowly reclaiming its space on the national stage.
“In 2025, with clubs like Rio Branco AC, Rio Branco VN, and Porto Vitória FC gaining national recognition, the state is proving that it hasn’t been forgotten, as many tend to believe,” she explains.
At the heart of that revival stands Desportiva Ferroviária, already qualified for the 2026 Copa do Brasil. For Camila, the club remains a symbol of tradition, resilience, and the deep passion that football ignites in the hearts of the people of Espírito Santo.
More Than Just a Club
“Supporting a club from Espírito Santo goes far beyond simply choosing a team and showing love for it,” Camila says. “It means having the strength and perseverance to support a kind of football that still needs to be seen — even by its own state.”
For her, that’s what makes Desportiva Ferroviária so special: a club that embodies not just a sporting identity, but a cultural one. One that continues to remind its people — and the rest of Brazil — that the heartbeat of football doesn’t only echo from Rio or São Paulo, but from every corner of the country where the game still feels like home.
All our thanks to Camila Müller
All images by Camila Müller
All words and images by Jonas Zöller
There’s something about Buenos Aires that pulls you in through its football. Every night seems to offer another game, another neighbourhood, another story. After two whirlwind matches across the city, I find myself heading west on a Monday evening — tired, sunburned, but completely hooked. This time it’s Vélez Sarsfield, a club that might not make international headlines, but in this city, every stadium tells its own tale.
When the third match in four days still feels like the first love of football.
Early Monday evening. Vélez Sarsfield. After the first two big ones, I’m excited for a game that probably isn’t on many European radars. To be honest, the third match in four days is starting to leave its marks. When my Uber driver asks who’s playing tonight, I just mumble something that roughly translates to “no idea.”
Still, I can’t wait. The area around the stadium is wide and full of murals and bars. As I arrive, the first buses pull up, blue and white flags waving from the windows. Accompanied by the first trumpet chants, I go looking for someone selling Fernet—and boy, I’m ready for football.
Finding Fernet and Football
After a couple of Fernet-Cokes in a small backyard bar—where I’m undoubtedly the palest guest of the season—I make my way to the stadium. It’s an absolute beauty: floodlights rising high above the blue outer shell. The belly of the ground leans against a highway, beneath which several five-a-side pitches are tucked away. The noise and movement around them blend perfectly with the energy that’s building inside the stadium.
Inside, hot dogs and drinks are sold, youth teams are playing near the narrow railing. The match isn’t sold out, but when the smoke from the pre-match fireworks catches in the floodlights, I feel it.
“This is exactly the kind of football I fell in love with.”
The curva is loud and cheerful, and the trumpet guy must have lungs of steel. Vélez turn the early deficit before halftime and end up winning 3–1.
Another Night, Another City
For the rest of the game, I just listen to the chants and feel a strange calm settle over me. The beer after the match tastes like a well-earned one after work, and right there I decide to stay another week in Buenos Aires.
I just need to see more football.
And to be fair, after all these stadium visits, I’ve somehow managed to completely skip seeing the city itself.
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Story and images, by Gregorio Gastaldi
Spain’s top flight loves its big headlines, Madrid’s glare, Barça’s grand gestures, Atleti’s grit. But look a little closer and you’ll find a club that’s been doing big things in a small town for years. Villarreal CF, tucked away in Castellón, continue to play like a heavyweight in a bantamweight’s suit. As of this week, they’re sitting 3rd in LaLiga, once again jabbing above their weight and smiling about it.
Founded in 1923, Villarreal spent decades wandering the lower leagues before bursting onto the scene around the turn of the century. Since then, the Yellow Submarine have turned persistence into a personality trait: European nights, smart recruitment, a stadium that hums, and a badge that somehow makes yellow feel like a superpower.
The Europa League crown in 2021 didn’t arrive by accident; neither did that Champions League semi-final run that made the continent pay attention. Villarreal’s trick is simple: trust the structure, back the coach, and build teams that look greater than the sum of their parts.
Speaking of parts — and parts that click — Estadio de la Cerámica remains one of Spain’s most distinctive stages. It’s compact, loud, and intensely local, the kind of ground where a one-goal lead feels like two once the crowd leans in. That intimacy mirrors the town itself: a community project masquerading as a European regular.
And the schedule doesn’t let up. Tonight, Villarreal head to Cyprus to face Pafos in the Champions League league phase — a trip that says everything about where this club lives now: on airplanes, on prime-time kickoffs, on those European midweeks they once only dreamed about. The tie’s set for Alphamega Stadium in Limassol; another chance to prove that the Submarine travels well.
If you’re looking for a neat storyline, Villarreal keep handing them out: a provincial club that plans like a giant, recruits like a spreadsheet whisperer, and keeps turning “nice little club” into “nasty little away day.” Third in the table, passports stamped, and that same old yellow glow. The Submarine doesn’t make waves with noise — it does it with results. And lately, there have been plenty of those.
Story and images, by Gregorio Gastaldi
