One of the most appealing aspects of soccer is its simplicity—a ball, some open space, goal markers, and you can play. As the 2018 World Cup kicks off in Russia, with matches held in massive modern arenas, here is a look at the beautiful game in action in some smaller and more unusual venues around the world, including pitches built on a glacier, on a beach, floating in a river, made of straw, on a rooftop, and more.
Photos: Soccer Fields Around the World
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Players of FC Gspon (white), representing Switzerland, play against FC Zuma (red), representing Spain, during their Mountain Villages international soccer tournament match in Gspon, in the Swiss Alps, on May 29, 2010. The match is played on the highest elevated soccer field in Europe. At about 2,000 meters, the pitch can only be reached by a cable car, which can only carry up to 10 people, or on foot—a 45-minute climb. #
Michael Buholzer / Reuters -
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KV Svalbard's crew, formed by Norwegian navy privates and scientists from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, play soccer as they are protected from polar bears by armed guards in the sea around Greenland, on March 22, 2018. #
Marius Vagenes Villanger / Kystvakten / Sjoforsvaret / NTB Scanpix / Norsk Telegrambyra AS / Reuters -
A man does pushups while guarding a goal post as he and others play soccer on a street during an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Feburary 9, 2015. #
Andres Martinez Casares / Reuters -
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Children play soccer after the inauguration ceremony of a new pitch installed at Mineira favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on September 10, 2014. 200 self-energy-supplied Pavegen panels, invented by British Laurence Kemball-Cook, were installed underground to capture kinetic energy created by the movement of the football players. The energy is stored and combined with solar panels' energy to illuminate the pitch during the night. #
Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / Getty -
Former FARC rebels play football in the unarmed zone known as Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation Antonio Narino, where former guerrilla fighters receive training to facilitate their development, reconciliation, and reincorporation into civilian life, in Icononzo, Colombia, on June 12, 2018. #
Raul Arboleda / AFP / Getty -
Players attend a football tournament among local amateur teams in a stadium made of straw named Zenit Arena, in the settlement of Krasnoye in the Stavropol region of Russia on July 22, 2017. #
Eduard Korniyenko / Reuters -
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Players compete during a local third-category football match between Atletico Diritti and Cetus Roma on May 8, 2016, at the Campo Gerini ground beside the Felice Acqueduct in Rome, Italy. #
Filippo Monteforte / AFP / Getty -
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In this photo taken on June 3, 2017, a South Sudanese refugee boy holds a makeshift soccer ball as he plays with his friends in the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement in northern Uganda. Soccer fields and inter-village competitions are found across the world's largest refugee settlement. Even more are being created, underscoring the importance of sport in a community trying to forget the horrors of war with a rare source of entertainment in an otherwise dreary existence. #
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Shipston Excelsior FC (black and white) play Burnwood Town FC at Brereton Town FC's ground in front of the coal-fired Rugeley Power Station, near Rugeley, England, on April 2, 2016. #
Oli Scarff / AFP / Getty -
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People play football at a field next to radomes of the digital communications listening station of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German intelligence agency, on June 2, 2015, in Bad Aibling, Germany. #
Sean Gallup / Getty -
A picture taken on October 5, 2017, from the Mont de Gourze in Riez, western Switzerland, shows a football pitch illuminated with floodlights at sunset above the Lake Geneva. #
Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty -
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Chickens run to avoid a soccer game at an evacuee center in Lolovoli village on the island of Ambae, part of the Vanuatu Islands chain, near Saratamata, on December 11, 2005, after most of the residents of the village fled to a safe zone away from the hazard of an erupting volcano. #
Rick Rycroft / AP -
Amateur soccer players from Switzerland play against Italy during the 2016 Mountain Villages European soccer tournament on the Allalin glacier in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, on March 12, 2016. #
Ruben Sprich / Action Images / Reuters -
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Contestants compete in the 8th mud soccer championship in Woellnau, near Leipzig, Germany, on August 6, 2016. Legend has it that a Finnish officer sent his soldiers to the bog for conditioning runs. To increase the fun factor, one day he kicked a ball onto the marsh and mud football was born. The championships have been held since 1998, and in 2000, a world championship with international teams was created. #
Jens Schlueter / Getty -
Boys play soccer on a driftwood soccer court on the banks of the Rio Negro in Catalao community near Manaus, Brazil, on April 4, 2015. Residents of Catalao, a village of houseboats, built a floating wooden soccer court after their village field was flooded by the swollen Rio Negro. #
Bruno Kelly / Reuters -
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