We are the champions! Meet the winners of the Soccer Shots comp

Back in May, we challenged you to capture what soccer means to you and send us your best, most blistering and brilliant shots of the beautiful game.

We were flooded with colourful, atmospheric, quirky and simply beautiful pictures. Sadly, there could only be forty finalists, but oh boy what a selection. These forty lucky individuals were sent a trial Lumia 1520 device with a second brief to capture soccer inspired imagery from their country. They had no limit to how many pictures they could upload to OneDrive and they dazzled us with their photographic skills, submitting over 800 fantastic photos.

Then you voted for your top 10 portfolios, which we sent to Stephen Alvarez, one of the world’s most respected photographers.

Needless to say, it was an incredible challenge to pick the three winners, but after careful scrutiny Stephen has made his decision. But before you feast your eyes on their mastery, here’s a selection of the best from the other finalists.

Vincent Kariuki

Goncalo Figueredo

Peter Velisek

Andrew Bernhardt

Robert John Cabagnot

Frederic Vanwalleghem

Dutta Chowdhury

These awesome shots give you an idea of how tough Stephen’s challenge was, but here are the three winners who’ll be accompanying him on a photographic adventure of a lifetime to Victoria Falls.

Stephen Curry

Rohit Shringar

Peter Vadozc

Thoroughly well deserved in our opinion, but more importantly, what do you think of the finalists and the winners? Let us know down below. And if you want to follow the adventures of our champions in Africa be sure to check out the hashtag #LumiaxNatGeo on Instagram and Twitter in near future.