The soccer balls are “joyful, highly visible, and deeply local,” said Sundance Square Art Director Sarah Ayala in a press release.
The balls are also plentiful, with more than two dozen of them distributed throughout the Sundance Square neighborhood of downtown Fort Worth.
You should know they aren’t real soccer balls and you won’t be able to dribble them terribly effectively — they’re oversized and made of fiberglass. They’re painted works of art, each executed by a different local artist.
“The installation becomes a celebration of soccer but also of the artists and creative voices that make Fort Worth such a dynamic cultural city,” Ayala goes on to say.
A celebration of soccer has, in fact, begun across North Texas, thanks to Arlington staging a tournament-high nine matches in the FIFA World Cup 2026, Dallas hosting the International Broadcast Center and fan fest, and numerous other public and private concerns embracing the sport. Such a happening fills one’s eyes with the vibrant oranges, blues, reds, yellows, and other hues belonging to supporters of different nations. Besides the organic visual smorgasbord the event provides, a number of entities have looked to ensure more formal artistry finds itself well-represented within the sporting spectacle.
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“We see art as a part of the cultural fabric of our community, and this major experience is going on in our city, so why wouldn’t we do something like this?” said Chris Hightower, president & CEO at the Arlington Museum of Art. His institution, located within walking distance of the stadium where the local games will be played, will host More Than a Match through August 2.
The exhibit includes four separately themed components displaying not only works of art created as such but also artifacts of the game like shoes, balls, and trophies. Such functional objects show the confluence of art and sport.
“Those things are all designed by craftsmen and artists, so why not show those things?” Hightower said.
He also feels the visual appeal can provide an easy point of entry for patrons who may have recently taken an interest in the beautiful game thanks to the buzz around the World Cup.
“For a casual soccer fan, even somebody that’s not a fan at all, I think this is the way to learn about the game, learn about the sport, learn about the history of the World Cup,” he said. “This is an easy way to kind of get into it.”
The AMA emplacement offers several ways to discover the essence of the sport. A set of historic maps created in conjunction with UTA helps visitors understand the geography of the countries whose national teams are scheduled to play in Arlington. In the next gallery, artifacts are displayed in conjunction with text and photos telling the stories of all the Men’s and Women’s World Cups played to date. A section called “Art of the Game” features soccer-themed works of artists from around the world. It explores the game and the broader themes that affect it. There is also an area called “Fabrics of Fanatics” where the museum has hung scarves loaned by supporters, capturing what is perhaps the most universal way soccer fans visually express their loyalties.
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Brewer Michael Peticolas has long expressed his love of soccer through beer. This year, he decided to also do so through photography.
He’s loved soccer since playing it as a child and took that passion to another level when he attended a match at the Cotton Bowl in 1994, the first time the United States hosted soccer’s biggest spectacle.
“That was kind of a life-changing moment for me,” he said. “Like, I was in the stadium, and it felt so different than anything else I’d ever been to. I don’t remember the score of that game, but I remember it being amazing, an experience like nothing else.”
When he started Peticolas Brewing Company, the soccer-obsessed beermaker infused the look of his favorite sport into it from the very beginning, including when designing the firm’s official logo. “I wanted it to look like the crest on a footballer’s chest, and so this logo was designed with the idea of, ‘Yeah, I want it to look like a soccer logo.’ ”
Since 2014, Peticolas has produced unique beers commemorating each World Cup. He called his first such special edition, an India Pale Ale, Thrilla in Brazilla, since Brazil hosted that 2014 tournament. This year, he’s making three beers in homage to an event jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. After meeting noted Brazilian soccer photographer Marcelo Guelber Góes, Peticolas also decided to cover the walls of his taproom in football images.
“We said, ‘Hey, let’s see about turning this into a world soccer exhibit, as opposed to, you know what we typically have in here,’” Peticolas said. “I thought this gallery would be something cool, something different.”
Góes provided enough of his work to stretch throughout the two-story interior space where Peticolas sells his beer for on-and-off-site consumption. Outside, a huge image of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo hangs over the main entrance. “Ronaldo in the Rain” won Best Football Photo in the 2024 World Sports Photography Awards.
Peticolas will also have moving soccer pictures available for customers as he plans to show every game of the upcoming tourney live on his brewery’s televisions. He’s creating a special fourth beer, too, in conjunction with a Japanese supporters group who will party at his location during Samurai Blue’s local games. He’s even going with the group on a bus to their game in Monterrey, Mexico. Yes, he’s bringing beer.
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Photo by Rush Olson
Not far from Peticolas Brewing Company’s Dallas Design District location sits a much larger work of soccer art, spearheaded by grassroots art nonprofit Street Art for Mankind. Created by Dutch artist Rosalie de Graaf, “One Field. Infinite Smiles” measures 250 feet wide by 150 feet high and sits adjacent to the in-development Harold Simmons Park along the Trinity River. It depicts children playing the sport and clearly enjoying the experience.
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Photo by Ana Gonzalez
Facilitating sports opportunities for children factors into the vision for another larger-than-life artistic expression that Street Art for Mankind helped place, this one in Arlington’s Entertainment District. Created by Nigerian artist Steve Ekpenisi, the massive sculpture of a soccer shoe, or boot, with a spur sits across Randol Mill Road from Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. Ekpenisi crafted the “Texan Golden Boot” from locally reclaimed metal. The North Texas FWC Organizing Committee and North Texas Sports Foundation have launched their Buy a Brick campaign to cover the grass plaza on which it sits. Donors who contribute $500 to $5,000 can have their names inscribed on individual bricks that will surround the sculpture. Proceeds will benefit the NTSF, including its Mini-Pitch Initiative that aims to place small-sided soccer courts in under-resourced neighborhoods.
The campaign serves as one of many of examples of how aesthetics can complement athletics. FC Dallas President Dan Hunt, speaking at the “Texan Golden Boot” dedication ceremony, confirmed it, saying, “Sports and art are not independent of each other. In fact, they just enhance one another.”
The World Cup that he and his family helped bring to North Texas is providing multiple opportunities to amplify that sentiment.
