Most team photos are the same. Players make mean-mugs or straight faces and sit or stand neatly in rows, their hands either resting on their knees or tucked neatly behind their backs. Coaches, players and administrators alike stare blankly into the lens, largely emotionless, the very picture of a finely-oiled machine. It’s all business.



Scan across the front row of the Philadelphia Union’s 2019 team photo, though, and you’ll find a clear outlier. Ilson Pereira Dias Júnior, more commonly known simply as Ilsinho, sports a mile-wide smile. This isn’t some half-smile; it’s a very toothy one, the kind of pure, joyous expression only possessed by someone truly oblivious or entirely uncaring of what they’re supposed to look like in one of these photos. It’s the human equivalent of a dog’s tongue-wagging, innocent grin, the type of expression that just says “I’m just happy to be here, man.”



Ilsinho has...