Football Never Ends in Brazil
The Cruzeiro Esporte Clube football club in Brazil may have taken the Série A title to mark the end of the local season in the country, but Brazil’s football season never ends.
Football isn’t just a game for the Brazilians; it’s a way of life, much like their beach culture, bright colours and lively, energetic characters. Perhaps there is no better way to show how Brazil lives, breathes and dies by the beautiful game, then in a photo series produced by photographer Christopher Pillitz.
The photo series titled The Beautiful Game, is homage to the football culture and ethos that has been finely aged within Brazil’s borders ever since Scottish expatriate Thomas Donohue organised the first five-a-side matches in 1894, to Christopher Miller’s establishment of the first Brazilian leagues, and who is now widely considered the father of football in Brazil.
Pillitz’s series, captures perfectly how Brazilians from all ages and all walks of life, have taken the game to every space and surrounding around them, making it a part of Brazil and a part of who they are.
From a set up goal on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, to the neighbourhoods of São Paulo, and along every street corner in some of Brazil’s most populated cities, Pillitz lays out a irrefutable argument of Brazil’s claim to be the country that harbours football’s heart through his lens.
Each photo paints a culture of football that is played day-in-and-day-out, both physically and mentally. From the children dreaming under the warm humid air of becoming the next Pelé or Neymar, to the local banana vendor who takes a pass in a pick-up-game along his normal sales route. Pillitz shows just how deeply Brazil was forever changed on that fateful day in 1894.
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