Young collectors are already preparing for the World Cup album

What is it: does it appear every four years and has it to do with football? If you thought about the World Cup, you are right. But the competition does not arrive alone, along with the Cup sticker album, which can generate as much anxiety as the tournament in Qatar.

For Gustavo Bassetti, 14, this is a long-awaited moment. “It’s very satisfying to open the packages, find Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo, and compete with friends to see who completes first. These are things that stay in the memory.”

He is an enthusiast and practically a veteran. The 2022 World Cup album, released on Thursday (18), will be the third of its kind that he will collect. There were also others, such as the album by the Minions (the gang that became famous in the animation “Meu Malvado Favorito” and has already won two movies of its own) and the centenary album of Palmeiras, Gustavo’s heart club.

“This year I also intend to collect the Copa album, since it’s something that only happens every four years. It’s really cool to change stickers. I’ll need to change them, since it’s going to be expensive [completar a coleção]”, analyzes Gustavo, who must turn to school friends, those in the neighborhood and those who live close to his grandparents for exchanges.

In relation to the last World Cup, played in 2018 in Russia, the packages with 5 stickers doubled in price – they rose to R$ 4, that is, R$ 0.80 per sticker.

It may not seem like much, but in all, there are 670 stickers. This means that the value to complete the album would be R$ 536 – if you can change all the repeated ones and not accumulate any.

The publisher Panini, responsible for printing, says that the values ​​have been stable for two years, and that prices need to follow FIFA rules so they are not different in Latin American countries.

It is FIFA (International Football Federation) that holds the Cup and is the owner of this brand.
But what if you don’t want to swap stickers? Well, then the deal gets even more expensive. The bill varies, but some mathematicians say that it would be necessary to gather an average of 4,750 stickers to close the album, that is, spend about R$ 3,800 – remembering that the value can be smaller or greater, depending on luck or misfortune.

The good part is that the metallic figurines, 50 in all, are no longer difficult and appear in the same proportion as the others. So, it shouldn’t be a problem to get that nice shield from the selection you like the most.

And this year there’s a new challenge: there are 80 extra stickers, outside the album, with a moving image. They will appear as an extra chrome, with 6 stickers instead of 5 in the pack.

Thiago Morassi, 10, is so fond of football figurines that he himself has become one. When he played soccer at a school, the students, distributed into teams named after famous teams or clubs, became collectible items.

Thus, Thiago was already in France and Chapecoense, and today he keeps the albums in which he himself is pasted.

After collecting the 2014 World Cup album with the help of his uncle, and the 2018 World Cup album, he is already thinking about robbing the piggy bank to invest in the new collection with the players who will be in Qatar.
Fortunately, Thiago already knows how to fill the album spending as little as possible.

“I’m going to exchange stickers with my friends. I can also go to newsstands and events to exchange with other people. I won many stickers from people who had repeated them”, he says.

In 2018, events were common in different parts of the city that brought together people trying to complete the collection. And is it easy to complete the album? “It takes a while, but it does”, says Thiago.