Drawing the pitch, Essaouira, Morocco

Beautiful literary footwork from Eduardo Galeano, with some photographs from my ongoing collaboration with Lesley Katon, World of Good.

“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’ And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”

La Clinique du Ballon, Marrakech

Football street art, East London

“The ball laughs, radiant, in the air. He brings her down, puts her to sleep, showers her with compliments, dances with her, and seeing such things never before seen his admirers pity their unborn grandchildren who will never see them.”

“And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball.”

PS A fine World Cup read: Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Hope and fear: Arsenal V Manchester United, Champions League 2009