For soccer nut Juergen Teller, it has never been enough simply to watch the World Cup. What the photographer and Bayern Munich fan likes is to watch himself watching it. During the 2002 final he asked an assistant to video his every grimace and expletive, as he squirmed on the couch while Germany lost to Brazil. The artwork didn't make for pretty viewing. “It was terrifying,” says Teller with a hearty laugh. “I was horrified. It took me three months to sit through the whole thing. But watching football is a time when you can be really stupid, and I like that. There aren't many times in life when you can let yourself go.”

Part of Macho, a new show at the Deste Foundation in Athens, finds him back on the sofa again, this time with his son Ed, watching their beloved Bayern lose to Chelsea in the Champions League final. “I stationed two assistants left and right, next to the television. They bombarded us with pictures, and we ended up with a portfolio of 24 photographs. I thought if we win, we win. And if we lose, it’s terrible. But I had this idea that I was going to sell the portfolio to Dasha Zhukova, partner of Roman Abramovich, who owns Chelsea. And we lost, but I sold it for a lot of money, and she gave it to Roman as a present. It was a win-win situation!”

Ed is his son with wife Sadie Coles, the British gallerist. Having a foot in both the Anglo and Teutonic camps, Teller Junior evidently boxes clever. “Last time England played Germany we were at the artist Darren Almond’s,” says Teller. “There were about 30 English supporters, and me and my assistant over in the corner supporting Germany. Ed was with my wife, saying ‘I'm with mummy!’ The game starts: 1-0 to Germany, then 2-0. At half time he comes over: ‘Daddy? Can I sit next to you guys?’” How the average England fan would love to have that option…

Did you watch football with your own father?
Juergen Teller: No he wasn’t a football fan, but my mum was. He was always a bit jealous of this bonding thing between me and my mother. He was a very melancholic, aggressive alcoholic, who ended up killing himself in 1988. In my World Cup final video, I recognized my dad in myself, when I was so aggressively shouting at the TV. And that was really hard to take.

Do you play sports yourself?
JT: You always bend over or sideways when you take photographs, and it's not a good position for your body. So I got a personal trainer to build up my core strength. I’m in this modern nylon, wearing crazy colours—it looks really ugly, and I grunt like a pig. And I thought, I’ve got to do something with this. So I started doing self-portraits while I’m doing exercise, to see what I looked like.

Will you be hosting a World Cup party?
JT: I like to invite people to watch the games—English and German friends. That’s the good thing about it, when you have kids, men and women together. It’s a great mixture. Beer. Barbecue. Sausages!

Macho, curated by Marina Fokidis, runs from June 20 through October 29 at Deste Foundation, Nea Ionia, Athens.

Tom Horan writes for the Guardian and the Observer.