Futbol Photographs: Honoring the Everyday Players

After months of anticipation since the fixtures were drawn, my friends the day is finally upon us: the World Cup kicks off tomorrow with Mexico versus host country South Africa in the opening match. To say I'm excited would be the understatement of the year -- though maybe not as excited as this guy.
I'll likely slip into a series of World Cup-related blog posts over the next month as the tournament transpires -- but since this is a photography blog, we'll keep it real.
To me it only seems fitting for a lead World Cup posting to be a tribute honoring the everyday man, the rec players and the loyal fan... we'll get to the twinkle toes and the prima donnas later on as the drama unfolds in South Africa.
**if anyone has any favorite futbol photographs or happens across some great images during the tournament, send me an email, I'd love to paste them up here.**

from the project Reality Football
© Alan Powdrill

I really really love Powdrill's project (blog here), which highlights the unsung heroes from the Sunday Leagues and Pub Teams across the UK. He's got an exhibition of the Reality Football works opening next week at theprintspace gallery in London.

Reality Football
photographs by Alan Powdrill
opening Thursday, 17 June
7pm
theprintspace gallery
74 Kingsland Road
London E2 8DL

from the series Park Celtic FC
© Andrew Hetherington

In a similar vein to Powdrill's series, Hetherington brings his signature quirky and witty photographic style to a series of portraits and interviews with rec players from the Park Celtic FC squad in his native Dublin. Have a browse through the entire gallery, they're quite a laugh.

© Chad Tenorio

Then there's Chad Tenorio's portraits (found via A Photography Blog) of New York teams competing in the AdiCup, a merger of soccer enthusiasts and the creative arts in the city. Similar tourneys are simultaneously held in Berlin, Tokyo and London, and the winning teams from each of the four cities will face off against eachother at the end of June to crown a grand champion. Go here to see more about Tenorio's portraits.

In my mind what makes these photo projects so great is just how real they feel -- I can imagine myself on that half-dirt pitch bloodying up my knees and elbows, yelling curse words, having a grand time with my friends and then retiring to a pub afterwards (usually to erase the memory of our losses). I see myself in these players: no coincidence then that I'm drawn to Hetherington's image of Eamonn Hughes the netminder, for example -- I've fallen into that role of playing goalkeeper on one of my rec teams, and I identify with his banged up knee and tacky-colored goalie gloves.

Yokohama stadium, Japan vs. South Korea
© Martin Parr / Magnum

Tehran, Iran
© Abbas / Magnum

England
© Chris Steele-Perkins / Magnum

Images by Martin Parr and other Magnum photographers from the book "Magnum Football".

from the project Soccer World
© Andrew Esiebo

Esiebo's project Soccer World is an ongoing documentation of soccer in his native Nigeria. He is a member of the African photography collective Black Box.
The Nigerians open in Group B on Saturday versus a tough Argentina team, should be a fun game to watch.

(Roma village, Ukraine)

Lastly, an image of mine from playing футбол with a group of gypsy kids in western Ukraine, while I was there in 2003 working on a photo project about the Roma.