UNIVERSE FÚTBOL

During 2023 and 2024, together with AS.com, we traveled across Spain to understand why the best football in the world was being played there.

We went looking for answers in its clubs and stadiums, but what surprised us most was what lay at the foundation: the quality of its football academies, the training of players from an early age, and a sporting culture passed down from one generation to the next.

We also discovered a different way of experiencing football. Passionate supporters, full stadiums, and a powerful sense of belonging, all within a largely family-oriented atmosphere, far removed from the violence and organized fan groups that define football culture in other countries.

In July 2026, Spain won its second World Cup.

That victory confirmed what we had begun to discover three years earlier: the success of Spanish football is not simply the result of one exceptional generation of players, but of a system built over decades by academies, coaches, clubs, families, neighborhoods, and supporters.

Football Universe was created to tell that story.

UNIVERSO FÚTBOL

Durante 2023 y 2024, junto a AS.com, recorrimos España para investigar por qué allí se estaba jugando el mejor fútbol del mundo.

Fuimos buscando respuestas en sus clubes y estadios, pero lo que más nos sorprendió estaba en la base: la calidad de sus escuelas de fútbol, el trabajo formativo desde la infancia y una cultura deportiva transmitida de generación en generación.

También descubrimos una manera distinta de vivir el fútbol. Aficiones apasionadas, estadios llenos y un fuerte sentido de pertenencia, dentro de un ambiente mayoritariamente familiar y alejado de la violencia y de las barras bravas que caracterizan al fútbol de otros países.

En julio de 2026, España ganó su segundo Mundial.

Aquel triunfo confirmó lo que habíamos comenzado a descubrir tres años antes: el éxito del fútbol español no nace solamente de una generación de grandes jugadores, sino de un sistema construido durante décadas por escuelas, entrenadores, clubes, familias, barrios y aficionados.

Universo Fútbol nació para contar esa historia.

Universo Cádiz

Cádiz, that peculiar team that carries the label of 'nice' wherever it goes. Its people, the people of Cádiz, the cadistas, have taken it upon themselves to spread their idiosyncrasy throughout the world. And it is that in the Tacita de Plata come together two strong passions that share many more things than they may seem: Cádiz (not football in general) and Carnival.

In this city it is not the same to talk about football as it is about their team, the one that every Cádiz citizen knows as soon as they are born that they will accompany them until the end of their days no matter how much suffering it causes them. Yellow and blue will mark their lives.

Universo Celta

In 2023, Celta will be celebrating its centenary. This entity was formed by the merger of the Fortuna and Vigo clubs and is closely linked to the word "Afouteza" - a term that cannot be literally translated into Spanish. It embodies a combination of qualities such as perseverance, courage, and pride.

The story of the Vigo team is a testament to their perseverance, as they are the eleventh team to have played the most seasons in the First Division and are close to reaching the tenth spot. Despite their unluckiness in winning their first state title, they continue to chase after it with unwavering enthusiasm.

Universo Rayo Vallecano

Vallecas and Rayo are inseparable entities. Rayo's unique identity has been shaped by the neighborhood, and the neighborhood's sense of community is inseparable from Rayo. As the only neighborhood team in Spanish football, Rayo has managed to maintain its essence over the past century.

The values of this neighborhood stem from its surroundings and community, ingrained with humility, sacrifice, and solidarity. Despite the presence of two major football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético, this working-class area has managed to thrive while upholding its core principles.

Universo Bétis

There are many ways to describe a football club: its stadium, the neighborhood that hosts it, its fans, its players, its myths, its history, its record, those unforgettable matches, those unimaginable goals... All this constitutes a sentimental heritage that makes unique to each club, which feeds that infinite and incomprehensible game that is football.

The prestigious Big magazine, winner of international awards and recognized as one of the most creative publications in the world, and AS, the world's leading sports platform in Spanish, have come together in a unique project: Universo Fútbol.

The idea is as simple as it is daring: capture the universe of each Spanish First Division club without words. Through the image and the sensations it provokes, leave in the retina of our readers a fixed photo of what each club is. Each snapshot evokes a specific part of what each club means, but it is all of them, in an impressionistic exercise, that narrates the universe that we want to describe.

We started this project with Betis, one of the most intangible entities in Spanish football, a historic and special club, whose people proclaim every day the pride of being part of something as difficult to explain as it is beautiful to enjoy. We started.