Last week, during a particularly stressful moment, I did something rather unusual in an attempt to relax. Too hot for a calming bath and too early in the week for a glass of wine, I reached for my new latest obsession: my World Cup sticker album.
For an outgoing girl in her mid-twenties, this may seem like an unusual hobby. And I must confess, I have even surprised myself somewhat with how enthusiastically I’m collecting these small pieces of paper with male football players on to stick onto bigger pieces of paper. Then I remind myself that there are people into all manners of things – re-enacting historical battles, Korfball, listening to Coldplay – and this really pales in comparison.
I’ve always been a football fan and have even started a WhatsApp group for “gals and their pals” to watch matches in pubs together. This year, more so than previous years, I have caught World Cup fever and sticker collecting appears to be a symptom. Both my best friend and “work wife” were already collecting them. So, one evening in Sainsbury’s, I spotted some albums and sticker multipacks and decided to spend the small winnings of a scratch card on them. Now I’m hooked.
It feels incredibly nostalgic. In the run-up to the 2006 World Cup, I remember being bought my first pack of Panini stickers aged six during a rainy caravan holiday to Norfolk by my dad. I had badgered him for days after spotting them in a shop; he finally relented after the inclement weather cancelled the outside activities we had planned – and he realised it would keep me occupied.
It is not a cheap hobby – it costs up to £1,000 to complete the 2026 48-team album – which I now understand is why my dad was so reluctant to buy me an album as a child. However, there is something healing about spending my grown-up salary on this simple, analogue pleasure. It is strangely very soothing to sit and peel the stickers and place them in the book. I’d even go as far as saying it is mindful. Unlike other sources of relaxation in my life like watching a TV show, it is physically impossible to go on your phone at the same time as filling out a Panini sticker book. I do it for the same reason other friends of mine have taken up knitting, baking, adult colouring books and watercolour painting.
It’s also sociable, and specifically requires IRL socialising. A key component is swapping your duplicates in exchange for ones you don’t already have. And it feeds your brain – mine is now full of trivia such as who won the World Cup in 1954, how old John Stones is, and who is the goalie for Paraguay.
Viola, a 25-year-old marketing manager who is also collecting Panini stickers, told me she enjoyed how it was a “communal activity” that “adds another fun layer” to watching the World Cup. She has also managed to convince some of her younger coworkers to participate, adding that “in the office we sometimes buy each other packets”.
For Pablo, a 24-year-old journalist, “the World Cup is still easily the thing I get the most childlike excitement from” and finds “something as simple as putting stickers of players in a book starts getting you in the mood”. He has been collecting Panini stickers since the 2010 World Cup, when he was eight. “I used to have teachers coming up to me during class [I was] assuming they were about to tell me off [but they wanted to] trade stickers.” It is not just his own childhood nostalgia he is tapping into. He explained to me how his mum, who is from Colombia, started collecting them with him as a child, continuing a tradition she enjoyed as a child herself.
It’s not too late to start collecting, though you’ll have to be committed to complete it by the World Cup Final. And if anyone has any England team duplicates, please post them to The i Paper towers. I can trade you one of my three spare Lionel Messis.
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