The much-loved Panini World Cup sticker album, a staple of football fandom for decades, is set to be discontinued after the 2030 tournament. This news has prompted reflections from writers who grew up with the thrill of collecting and trading stickers.
Lorenzo Tondo: The Quest for Roberto Baggio
International correspondent Lorenzo Tondo recalls the 1994 World Cup in the United States, a tournament brimming with stars like Hristo Stoichkov, Romário, and Gheorghe Hagi. But the most coveted sticker was that of Italy's Roberto Baggio, the Divine Ponytail, who had won the Ballon d'Or the previous year. As a Juventus fan, Tondo had a poster of Baggio on his bedroom door. He found the sticker just before the tournament began on 17 June. His album remained incomplete, but possessing Baggio's sticker felt like a trophy. Superstitious as a Sicilian, he feared sticking it in would bring bad luck to Italy. He eventually did, and Italy lost the final to Brazil after Baggio missed a penalty. For years, Tondo shared a sense of guilt for that defeat.
Gwyn Topham: A Mind-Blowing Find at Primary School
Transport correspondent Gwyn Topham still treasures his Panini albums from childhood, now stored in a plastic crate. Among them is the Mexico 86 album, complete with Gary Lineker, Maradona's Hand of God, and Mexico's empty stadiums. But his prized possession is the Football 83 Arthur Albiston sticker with Kevin Moran's face, a mind-blowing find at primary school. Flicking through the 1986 album, he notes how globalised football has become since then, with overseas players once a novelty and African and Asian teams sharing stickers. An aging Canadian defender now seems to leap out at him.
John Crace: Nagging Mum for the 1970 Album
Sketch writer John Crace recalls the summer of 1970, when he nagged his mother to buy him a Mexico 70 sticker book. It cost 2 shillings (10p), but soon he was pestering for packs of stickers, which were actually cards needing glue. He completed the album 12 years ago via eBay. The album is now a piece of football history, from a less commercialised era with only 16 teams. There was no Fifa branding on the cover, and players likely received no image rights. Bigger teams got 14 player cards and a team photo; lesser teams like Czechoslovakia made do with 11 players. The album wrote some footballers out of history.
Tim Jonze: Adult Collecting in 2014
Associate culture editor Tim Jonze found his peak Panini experience not as a child but in 2014, when he took up sticker collecting as an adult. Friends and colleagues joined in, meeting strangers in pubs and car parks to exchange tiny images of obscure players. He persuaded writer Hadley Freeman to start, and she secured an invitation to the Panini factory in São Paulo. There, they saw stickers produced on noisy machines, with women cutting sheets by hand and sorting packets. The company ran a scheme to send missing stickers by post, which would have saved childhood heartache.
Dan Milmo: The Rare Club Crest
Global technology editor Dan Milmo remembers the rarest prize in a Panini packet: the club crest, printed on metallic paper. In the mid-80s, he tore open a pouch on Ilford High Road to find a West Ham crest among the mullets. It went straight into the sparsely populated West Ham section. He was never a completist, but that moment felt like a local derby victory that made the season worthwhile. He never encountered another West Ham crest, but learned that emotional highs and his favourite team would not always align.
