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"FacebookPinterest\n\nIn one photograph, big blue sky surrounds weathered wooden beams that lean the same direction as the tall grasses below. Not a player is in sight, but just the mere existence of these goalposts, out in what looks like the middle of nowhere, testify to the importance of soccer across South Africa\u2014in corners of the country far from the World Cup, the screaming crowds, and the luxury hotels.\n\nThe image is part of the Soccer Kultcha exhibition at the University of Cape Town\u2019s Michaelis Gallery, and it will be on display for the duration of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The show features 10 photographers, most of whom live in the impoverished Cape Flats, a sprawling set of townships where rusty tin huts and stagnant streams of sewage are a familiar sight. Amid the poverty, soccer is both an outlet and a symbol of spirit, said Lindeka Qampi, a photographer who has several pictures in Soccer Kultcha.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n&amp;quot;Life is tough here,&amp;quot; she said during a recent walking tour through Khayelitsha township, a blighted place where the stench of feces is omnipresent. &amp;quot;But they enjoy life\u2014being human.&amp;quot;\n\nQampi, who has called the Cape Flats home for years, is familiar with the hardness of the place. She sent hand signals to a pair of chatting men, imploring them to keep an eye on a visiting reporter\u2019s lone automobile, whose shiny paint-job stood out almost ridiculously amid such decay.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nWith her Canon dangling from her neck, Qampi chatted up mothers and sons, pointed out goats nibbling from heaps of trash. She smiled as a group of young boys chased a tiny soccer ball in between the hovels where they would later rest their heads.\n\n&amp;quot;I think the message [of the exhibition] is, essentially, that there\u2019s a much bigger picture,&amp;quot; said Paul Weinberg, Senior Curator at UCT\u2019s Center for Curating the Archive, who organized the show with two other staffers. &amp;quot;While the world focuses on the main games and the celebrities and the stars, [soccer] actually is played\u2014not only in South Africa but in the third world\u2014by the majority of people.&amp;quot;\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nFrom barefoot young boys to grown men in spotless uniforms, these people are the World Cup that exists beyond the $400 million stadium. They are the pair of teens with mismatched cleats and mohawks, ready to take on David Beckham or Cristano Ronaldo\u2014or at least have fun imagining. Or the boy who, in another Soccer Kultcha photo, holds a worn ball above his head as if he\u2019s hoisting the golden World Cup trophy. Except, instead of screaming fans and TV crews, he\u2019s surrounded by hanging laundry, old tires and rusty shacks.\n\n&amp;quot;What you\u2019re looking for in the shot is the action, the expression in their faces\u2014to show that they play with big energy and to show that they love soccer,&amp;quot; Qampi said.\n\nThe energy that Qampi and her fellow &amp;quot;street photographers&amp;quot; have captured, Weinberg said, creates a &amp;quot;lightness&amp;quot; that runs through the exhibition despite the overwhelming adversity. &amp;quot;Soccer is played in situations that are difficult, circumstances are hard,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;but people try and rise above them. The game is bigger than these kinds of circumstances.&amp;quot;\n\n\u2014Noah Rosenberg"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/our-man-in-south-africa-soccer-far-away-from-the-stadium-lights>