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

In Mexico, football is played wherever space permits. The Reuters photographer Raquel Cunha spent three months taking photos of amateur matches across Mexico City and beyond

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