Clint Strydom was selected as one of the artists commissioned to create a series of works for the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa. His resulting body of work, "The Real Heroes," offers a deeply human and emotional perspective on the tournament by shifting focus away from the stadiums and stars, and toward the everyday love of the game.
Through striking photographs of children playing soccer on beaches, in townships, and across informal fields, often with worn-out balls and improvised goals, Strydom captures the spirit, resilience, and unfiltered passion of a nation united by football. The series is a tribute to the true heartbeat of the World Cup: the people who live and breathe the game, regardless of circumstance.
Real Heroes by Clint Strydom
In 2010, when the eyes of the world turned toward South Africa for the first FIFA World Cup ever to be hosted on African soil, the story of the tournament was largely told through stadiums, global superstars, and the spectacle of international football. But South African photographer Clint Strydom chose to tell a different story. Selected as one of the commissioned artists for FIFA’s official Fine Art Project, Strydom created a body of work that refuses the glittering surfaces of the event. Instead, his series Real Heroes pays homage to the true heartbeat of the game: the children, the dreamers, the everyday players who live and breathe football far from the spotlight.
A Human Lens on a Global Event
Rather than turning his camera toward the pitch or the corporate fanfare, Strydom set out across beaches, townships, and dusty open fields. There he encountered children improvising soccer with tattered balls, makeshift goals, or simply the wide horizon of a sandy stretch of land. His photographs, most often rendered in dramatic black and white, distill these moments into timeless studies of resilience and joy. Light and shadow carve out silhouettes of leaping bodies; the texture of sand, sky, and dust become as much a part of the story as the players themselves.
This aesthetic strategy strips away the distractions of color and focuses attention on form, gesture, and raw emotion. Through overexposure, deep contrast, and stark compositional framing, Strydom amplifies the energy of motion, a child suspended mid-air, a ball barely holding together, the sharp edge of a goalpost improvised from wood or wire. Each image becomes not just documentation but a visual metaphor for endurance, creativity, and love of the game.
Resilience, Dignity, and Belonging
Many of the subjects play with worn-out equipment or patched-together gear. Yet their commitment to play never falters. Their resourcefulness becomes a symbol of perseverance in the face of limited means.
Strydom avoids voyeurism or sensationalism. Instead, he photographs with empathy and respect, presenting his subjects as dignified protagonists in their own right. These are not anonymous children but heroes of their own narratives.
The South African landscapes, the vast skies, the gritty township grounds, the rhythmic waves of the coast, are not mere backdrops. They are integral to the identity of the game and to the stories of the people who play it. Football here is inseparable from place, culture, and community.
By turning his lens away from stadiums and celebrity players, Strydom reframes the legacy of the World Cup. His work insists that the true memory of the 2010 tournament lies not in its monumental infrastructure but in the ordinary joy of children who carry football in their hearts long after the event has passed.
Reception and Significance
Real Heroes formed part of FIFA’s Fine Art Collection for the 2010 World Cup, exhibited across South Africa and internationally. In June 2009, even before the tournament began, one of Strydom’s photographs, a portrait of a boy holding a ball, was presented to FIFA President Sepp Blatter by the mayor of Johannesburg, symbolically placing the grassroots game at the very center of the world stage.
Critics and audiences alike have praised the series for its honesty and humanity. Publications such as PBS, the Mail & Guardian, and others highlighted how Strydom’s lens cut through the spectacle to capture the enduring spirit of football as lived in daily life. For many, the series remains one of the most poignant artistic reflections of the South African World Cup.
The Artist
Born in Johannesburg and raised on KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast, Clint Strydom has long explored the interplay of light, landscape, and human presence. His photographic practice blends documentary immediacy with fine art sensibility, producing works that are both emotionally intimate and compositionally striking. With Real Heroes, he contributed not just to the memory of the 2010 World Cup, but to a broader conversation about sport, community, and the stories that truly matter.
Legacy
More than a decade later, Real Heroes continues to resonate. In an era still shaped by questions of inequality, access, and representation, Strydom’s photographs remind us that the “beautiful game” is at its most powerful when stripped down to its essence: passion, community, and play. His “heroes” may not be famous, but they are real, and in their joy, resilience, and unfiltered love of football, they embody the spirit of the World Cup better than any stadium could.
