A boy plays at the feet of a statue of former South African President Nelson Mandela on Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, on October 29, 2024. (Photo by Esa Alexander/Reuters)

As Russia puts the finishing touches to the carefully manicured fields that will host the World Cup from next week, people around the globe are playing soccer on a surprising variety of makeshift pitches. Off the coast of an island in southern Thailand, they play on a floating platform; in the mountains of northern Italy, they kick about in the snow – images captured by Reuters photographers around the world. Here: Local residents play soccer on the top floor of a parking garage in Jakarta, Indonesia, May 4, 2018. (Photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters)

Iraqi soldiers work at a radio station at Makhmour base, Iraq April 17, 2016. The Iraqi army has set up a radio station at its base in Makhmour broadcasting into areas south of Mosul controlled by Islamic State militants. The radio, which reaches villages halfway to the northern city, broadcasts military anthems and messages to the more than one million civilians living there. Radio operators said their aim was to weaken the militants’ morale and reassure civilians that the military has not forgotten them after nearly two years under Islamic State control. (Photo by Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)

Naga Sadhus or Hindu holy men, smeared with ash, drink tea inside their makeshift camps near the confluence of river Ganges and the Bay of Bengal, ahead of Makar Sankranti festival at Sagar Island, south of Kolkata January 13, 2015. Hindu monks and pilgrims are making their annual trip to Sagar Island for the one-day festival of “Makar Sankranti” on Wednesday. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

Ivan Plakhuta, 54, the owner of a small workshop manufacturing valenki, Russian traditional footwear, rolls a valenok in the remote Siberian village of Bolshaya Rechka, located in Taiga area in the foothills of the Western Sayan Mountain Ridge in the Yermakovsky district of Krasnoyarsk region, Russia, November 10, 2015. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

At the Krasnopresnenskaya station, the benches come from the Cathedral of Christ-Sauveur, which was built from 1839 to 1883 in memory of the victory of Russia against the army of Napoleon I. The cathedral was destroyed under Stalin in 1931, but the benches remained intact. Metro architects decided to install them in some stations. (Photo by Didier Bizet/The Washington Post)

The Big Island's Mauna Loa Volcano erupts on November 28, 2022 on the Island of Hawaii. For the first time in almost 40 years, the biggest active volcano in the world erupted prompting an emergency response on the Big Island. (Photo by Andrew Richard Hara/Getty Images)

Women wait for customers at the fish harbour in Kasimedu Fish market, Chennai, India, on June 26, 2024. (Photo by Riya Mariyam R./Reuters)