Hundreds of kilometres traveled by car. Three county football associations. More than thirty stadiums from the fourth and fifth divisions, as well as abandoned grounds. Youth training sessions, amateur matches, and seven months spent on the road.

Romania at Halftime began as an attempt to document lower-league football stadiums across Muntenia, the historical region in southern Romania. With every trip, however, the project gradually moved away from football itself and closer to the spaces where the game continues to exist.

Over the years, I have visited countless stadiums. Some have been demolished, rebuilt, or modernised. Others have remained almost unchanged. Some now host important competitions, while others survive somewhere between active use and abandonment.

I chose football for two reasons. First, it remains the country’s most popular sport and continues to fuel the imagination of countless children and teenagers. Second, football reveals the existence of two parallel worlds.

There is the world of major clubs and national teams, with modern infrastructure, spectacular arenas, and considerable resources. And there is the almost invisible world of village pitches, county leagues, abandoned stadiums, and communities trying to keep these places alive.

While global attention is focused on the biggest competitions and the most modern stadiums, far from television cameras and multi-million-euro contracts, other football grounds continue to be used every weekend.

Some are well maintained. Others are in an advanced state of decay. Some feature rusting stands, improvised fences, or facilities built gradually according to whatever resources were available. Others have been reduced to little more than a pair of lonely goalposts standing in a field.

Yet regardless of the condition of the infrastructure, the game continues.

Children, teenagers, and adults gather here to play, to dream, and to build communities around places suspended somewhere between abandonment and survival.

This project was not created to highlight poverty, decay, or what is missing. Its purpose is to offer as honest a portrait as possible of the sporting infrastructure that still exists within the small communities of Muntenia in 2025 and 2026.

More than a project about football, Romania at Halftime is a documentation of sports infrastructure and of the people who refuse to let it disappear.

Messi and Ronaldo will never play in these places. But when the referee makes a bad call, the reaction remains exactly the same as in any stadium around the world:

“Referee, why are you robbing us?”