adidas and FIGC present Scatti d’Azzurro, a photographic project that tells the story of Italy through one of its most recognizable symbols: the national team jersey. Conceived as a visual journey running from north to south, the project brings together six Italian photographers invited to portray football in the places they come from, offering an intimate and everyday look at a sport that in Italy is much more than just a game.
The starting point is precisely Azzurro, the color that has identified the national team for over a century and that over time has become a cultural element capable of bringing together generations, territories and different stories. With Scatti d’Azzurro, adidas and FIGC chose to move away from stadiums and major competitions to focus on football in its most spontaneous and authentic form: the kind that takes shape in neighborhood pitches, squares, streets and improvised spaces where the game comes to life every day.
The project unfolds across six Italian cities and territories: Palermo, Turin, Venice, Matera, Jesi and Val Camonica. Each one is told through the personal perspective of a photographer. In Venice, Cecilia Palmeri observes children who, after school, turn the campielli into small football pitches, carving out a space for the ball in a city increasingly shaped by tourism. In Matera, Francesco Freddo returns to the places of his childhood, among squares and imperfect playing fields where street football is still played today.
The story continues in Turin with Paola Massarenti, who photographs the provincial football grounds where she first started playing, showing how passion for the Azzurri jersey can bring different generations together. In Val Camonica and Brescia, Alessandro Belussi intertwines memories of childhood football with the landscape and historical layering of the territory, among squares, parish grounds and mountains.
In Palermo, Giuseppe Scianna (whom we have already featured here and here) follows football in the places where it continues to exist in its purest form: among the alleys of the Vucciria, the murals of working-class neighborhoods and the improvised pitches of Zen. Finally, Lorenzo Bonanni returns to Jesi, the city where he grew up, to tell the story of memories tied to afternoons spent playing in parks, on gravel pitches and in the spaces of everyday life.
The result is a collective narrative that runs across Italy and places at its center a kind of football far from the spotlight, made of friendships, memory and local identity. Through these images, Scatti d’Azzurro becomes a tribute to a country that continues to live football everywhere: not only in stadiums, but in the streets, neighborhoods and places where it all begins.
cover image: a shot by Francesco Freddo
