By DPA,
Los Angeles : Football has long been called “the beautiful game,” and now even people who don’t follow the world’s favourite sport might agree.
On Tuesday, US magazine published photos of some of the biggest football stars in the world stripped down to their underpants.
In an homage to the upcoming World Cup, stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba posed in briefs in their national colours for a photo project by celebrity photographer Annie Leibowitz.
The magazine placed semi-nude Ronaldo and Drogba on its front cover, while on the inside pages fans could ogle the scantily clad figures of Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o, Ghana’s Sulley Muntari, US player Landon Donovan, Brazil’s Kaka and Pato, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, Serbia’s Dejan Stankovic and England’s Carlton Cole.
Featuring 32 nations, the World Cup runs June 11-July 11 in South Africa.