MIAMI — An excitable, well-heeled crowd gathered in the Brickell City Center shopping complex, camera phones poised.
Paolo Maldini, the legendary Italian soccer player, smiled back. He was in good company: a handful of current stars of the world game — Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andres Iniesta and Luis Suárez — were there, too.
Well, at least their faces were. Faces made out of moss.
“Soccer is the most powerful sport in the world,” said Paloma Teppa, the founder of the botanical art gallery Plant the Future, who had created the works with the local muralist Andrew Antonaccio.