Football Masterminds – Football Portraits by Simone Arveda

November 4, 2026

José Mourinho, Paolo Maldini, Daniele De Rossi, Massimiliano Allegri and Luciano Spalletti feature in Simone Arveda’s grainy black-and-white portraits of some of great minds in the modern game. What draws them together is the emotional intensity in each face. All shot in Italy over the past two decades.

Born in Genoa in 1982, photographer and journalist Simone Arveda got his start in football in March 1998, writing, taking photographs and laying out pages for local magazine Settimana Sport. In 2004, he began working alongside Paolo Rattini, Sampdoria’s official photographer since the club’s 1991 Scudetto. They covered Serie A, European club football, European Championships and World Cups together until Rattini’s death in 2021.

“I’ve been dreaming of working as a sports journalist for as long as I can remember. I started writing articles for a local newspaper and fell in love with sports photography along the way. Being able to do it is a privilege I try to honour every time I enter a stadium,” says Arveda.

“I’ve been working as a professional sports photographer for over 22 years and my process has changed many times. I’m still looking to adjust and evolve, but ultimately it all relies on your client’s needs. I was Sampdoria’s official photographer up until last June, and at every match I had some ‘to-do pics’ I could not miss.

“The main goal is to satisfy the people who are waiting for your photos, but you can always try to have some fun and look for different perspectives along the way. And yeah, I’m glad you felt intensity and emotion. Those are ingredients I always want to have in my shots.

“It’s the passion for the game, I think, and it goes back to my father, Franco. A true football fan who could be angry after a bad defeat and still manage to analyse the full-back’s performance. I just need to be next to a rolling football. That’s it.”