Before everyone gets caught up in this year’s World Cup, I wanted to share these vintage soccer-team photos I bought at the flea market in Buenos Aires.
Something about the strange purplish background and the thickly inked emerald jerseys, made me stop and pick up the clipped-out magazine pageof F.C. Oeste , above. Perfect souvenir, I thought, from a land of devout Soccerites (Maradona, of course, is God). Before I knew it, the dealer--yes, vintage ephemera can be very addictive-- had brought out a 6”-thick stack of El Graphico team pictures for me to look at.
Since I do not work for Ralph Lauren (he's actually more of a rugby man), taking the whole pile was out of the question, so I just tried to pick out a moderate handful. Having little knowledge of soccer (or football, or futbol), my selection was based solely on appeal--an attitude, interesting colors, cute players, or details like the black armbands worn by the Quilmes team, or the two Estudiantes players posing with their kids (bottom photo).
I’ve loaded these images at a larger size than I usually do, so you can click to see more detail.
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