Football Roots: The Spirit of the Game

Football Roots: The Spirit of the GamePart of Assoulines Classics Collection of highly collectible and immaculately illustrated volumes representing movements in style and chronicling chic. Each book is an inspiring journey to aesthetic bliss, a unique world all its own. Before the stadiums, the floodlights, and the roaring crowds, there was a street, a ball, and a child with a dream. Football is not born in glory. It is born in dust and freedom, in impromptu games played without shoes or

Part of Assouline’s Classics Collection of highly collectible and immaculately illustrated volumes representing movements in style and chronicling chic. Each book is an inspiring journey to aesthetic bliss, a unique world all its own.

Before the stadiums, the floodlights, and the roaring crowds, there was a street, a ball, and a child with a dream. Football is not born in glory. It is born in dust and freedom, in impromptu games played without shoes or goalposts, in neighborhoods where the game is the great equalizer, belonging equally to everyone and to no one.

For Football Roots: The Spirit of the Game, photographer Sam Robles spent a decade traversing eighteen countries, from Brazil and Ghana to Morocco, Nepal, and beyond, to document the rawest expression of the sport. Gaining the trust of children in hidden and sometimes dangerous communities, often without speaking their language, Robles let football do the talking. The result is a body of work of rare tenderness and universality, capturing the joy, grit, and pure love of the game at its most elemental.

With a foreword by Brazilian football legend Marta Vieira da Silva and contributions from Antony, Endrick, and Adriano Imperador, the volume reminds us that greatness is shaped long before it ever reaches a professional pitch. For lovers of sport, photography, and the enduring spirit of childhood, this is a deeply moving testament to the game's most essential truth.

About the Brand

Assouline Publishing was founded as a family company in 1994 by Proper and Martine Assouline. It has published approximately 1500 titles on subjects ranging from architecture, art, design, fashion, lifestyle, and travel and has brought the illustrated book market to life with products that are modern, luxurious, and creative.

Created with the goal of becoming the first luxury brand on culture, Assouline aims to supply everything needed for a contemporary library. An active contributor to the growth of the illustrated market and its integration into the worlds of luxury, fashion, and design, Assouline provides the highest quality book-objects, sharing a distinctive graphic identity and editorial savoir-faire that have captured imaginations while addressing new themes in a contemporary manner. With its style and vision, the brand is a true pioneer.

Product Details

Released in May 2026

Author: Sam Robles, foreword by Marta Vieira da Silva
Publisher: Assouline Publishing Corporation
Edition: English
Book Details: 308 pages, over 200 illustrations
Material: Linen hardcover
Dimensions: (L 33 x W 25 x D 5) cm
Weight: 2.9 kg