Fields of the Gods: Mexico’s football pitches from above – photo essay

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.

Humberto Guadalupe (left), 14, and Eduardo Reyes, 12, play football, followed by snacks organised by evangelists, in Monterrey

Humberto with his grandfather Guadalupe Mendonza Guerrero and his grandmother Maria del Carmen Gutierrez Rodriguez at their house at Cerro de la Campana, Monterrey.

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.”

Pandilleros team members seen warming up through a broken car window before the Cerro de la Campana llanero championship semifinal tie against Bandoleros at Los Pinos football pitch in Monterrey

People watch a match between Bandoleros and Pandilleros

Children from communities near Cerro de la Campana play a match

Players during in an amateur league match between San Mateo and Real Madrid at the Cancha de los Dioses (Field of the Gods), a soccer field inside the crater of the dormant Teoca volcano

San Isidro coach Jorge Baltazar (in blue) talks to his players during a match against Bombay at the Cancha de los Dioses. Aitana Michelle Hernandez Blas and her mother sit as they watch Aitana’s father play.

Children trade a sticker of Brazilian player Vinícius Júnior from a World Cup album. Bombay player Diego Gutierrez Miranda, 19, plays with his 18-month-old baby, Matias Gutierrez Romero, before a match against Rayados

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.

Local people playing football at pitches as boats and trajineras pass through the Xochimilco ecological zone, composed of water channels and chinampas, or so-called floating gardens

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.

People ride a trajinera towards football fields to take part in amateur league matches

Referees gather before taking part in amateur league matches in the protected Xochimilco area. Emmanuel Dela Rosa, two, looks up at his father during an amateur league game

Emiliano Macedo, 21, wearing a kit inspired by the former Mexican goalkeeper Jorge Campos Navarrete, rests during a break in a match between Mexico and Argentina in the protected Xochimilco area

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.

A sports field known as the Field of the Gods, inside the crater of the inactive 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.

A painted football pitch in the Tlatelolco housing complex in Mexico City

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.