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Thursday, November 12, 2026

FIFA WORLD CUP WINNERS IN STICKERS

Inaugural FIFA World Cup was played back in 1930 in Uruguay. Host nation was the first winner, and of course, won its first WC title. Jules Rimet was FIFA president back then and came up with this idea. Over the years, the competition format has changed. From the participating teams to the competition system. 

First edition had a group stage with knockout stage. Next two editions saw only knockout stage system. The 1950 edition had a group stage where winners formed a final group stage. In some editions of the tournament we have first and second group stages. From 1986 we have a system the same as today. Group stage matches then knock-out stages.
The FIFA World Cup tournament was interrupted during the II World war.

Here you can see collages of all World cup winners. "Stickers" from 1930 to 1962 and 1970 are made like Panini did in their first ever WC album in 1970. 1974, 1978, 1982 and 1986 stickers are just like Panini's from those years. All the player pictures are found on the internet. All of these, let say, stickers are not original, just my hand work.

1930: URUGUAY (1st title)
Uruguay 4-2 Argentina (Dorado, Cea, Iriarte and Castro / Peucelle and Stabile)

1934: ITALY (1st title)
Italy 2-1 Czechoslovakia (a.e.t.) (Orsi and Schiavio / Puč)

1938: ITALY (2nd title)
Italy 4-2 Hungary (Colaussi x2 and Piola x2 / Titkos and G. Sarosi)

1950: URUGUAY (2nd title)
Winner of the final group stage

1954: WEST GERMANY (1st title)
West Germany 3-2 Hungary (Morlock and Rahn x2 / Puskas and Czibor)

1958: BRAZIL (1st title)
Brazil 5-2 Sweden (Vava x2, Pele x2 and Zagallo / Liedholm and Simonsson)

1962: BRAZIL (2st title)
Brazil 3-1 Czechoslovakia (Amarildo, Zito and Vava / Masopust)

1966: ENGLAND (1st title)
England 4-2 West Germany (a.e.t.) (Hurst x3 and Peters / Haller and Weber)

1970: BRAZIL (3rd title)
Brazil 4-1 Italy (Pele, Gerson, Jairzinho and C. Alberto / Boninsegna)

1974: WEST GERMANY (2nd title)
Netherlands 1-2 West Germany (Neeskens / Breitner and Muller)

1978: ARGENTINA (1st title)
Argentina 3-1 Netherlands (a.e.t.) (Kempes x2, Bertoni / Nanninga)

1982: ITALY (3rd title)
Italy 3-1 West Germany (Rossi, Tardelli and Altobelli / Breitner)

1986: ARGENTINA (2nd title)
Argentina 3-2 West Germany (Brown, Valdano and Burruchaga / Rummenigge and Voller)

1990: WEST GERMANY (3rd title)
West Germany 1-0 Argentina (Brehme)

1994: BRAZIL (4th title)
Brazil 0-0 Italy (a.e.t.) (3-2 PKs) (Romario, Branco and Dunga / Albertini and Evani)

1998: FRANCE (1st title)
Brazil 0-3 France (Zidane x2 and Petit)

2002: BRAZIL (5th title)
Germany 0-2 Brazil (Ronaldo x2)

2006: ITALY (4th title)
Italy 1-1 France (a.e.t.) (5-3 PKs) (Materazzi / Zidane) (Prilo, Materazzi, De Rossi, Del Piero and Grosso / Wiltord, Abidal and Sagnol)

2010: SPAIN (1st title)
Netherlands 0-1 Spain (a.e.t.) (Iniesta)

2014: GERMANY (4th title)
Germany 1-0 Argentina (a.e.t.) (Gotze)

2018: FRANCE (2nd title)
France 4-2 Croatia (Mandžukić (o.g.), Griezmann, Pogba and Mbappe / Perišić and Mandžukić)

2022: ARGENTINA (3rd title)
Argentina 3-3 France (a.e.t.) (4-2 PKs) (Messi x2 and Di Maria / Mbappe x3) (Messi, Dybala, Paredes and Montiel / Mbappe and Kolo Muani)

2026: SPAIN (2nd title)
Spain 1-0 Argentina (a.e.t.) (Torres)

Thursday, July 2, 2026

WORLD CUP 2026 NATION PRESENTATION: EGYPT

NICKNAME: The Pharaons

MANAGER: Hossam Hassan

MOST CAPPED PLAYER: Ahmed Hassan- 184 caps from 1995 to 2012

TOP SCORER: Hossam Hassan- 69 goals from 1985 to 2006

HOST NATION: -

WORLD CUP RECORD: 4th WC for Egypt

BEST RESULT: Egypt never managed to get past first round (1934) or group stage (1990 and 2018). Here is their team from 1934.

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

WORLD CUP 2026 NATION PRESENTATION: GHANA

NICKNAME: Black Stars

MANAGER: Carlos Queiroz

MOST CAPPED PLAYER: Jordan Ayew- 123 caps from 2010

TOP SCORER: Asamoah Gyan- 51 goal from 2003 to 2019

HOST NATION: -

WORLD CUP RECORD: From 1930 to 1954 they were part of the UK. 5th WC for Black Stars.

BEST RESULT: Quarter-final in 2010

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

CHILE PANINI FIFA WORLD CUP 1998 ALBUM

Ahead of this World Cup, we talked about Panini stickers and the problems they have encountered over the years, with a special emphasis on the story surrounding the Spanish Football Federation and the Spanish national team stickers for the 2002 World Cup album in Korea/Japan. The story of photoshopping stickers is nothing new. It happened in the past, and it still happens today.
On the blog you can find stories about photoshopped stickers of Mauro Silva, Ante Rebić, Roberto Firmino...

The story is very simple. Panini, like the example with Spain in 2002, did not have the rights to the photos, or rather the use of the official jersey of the Chilean national football team, nor the emblem of the federation. The rights or license were held by the local Chilean company Salo. The technical sponsor of the Chilean national team at that time was Reebok. So what Panini did do to have the stickers for the 1998 World Cup album? They photoshopped the heads of the Chilean players onto Adidas tracksuits. We know very well the story of the Iranian national team from the same album, where the stickers did not came out at all, but were printed later. In this situation, the famous Italian company received permission at the last minute to use the players' images, and in this way they came up with a solution to this problem. There have been other such examples throughout history.

If we look at the 1998 World Cup album and turn to the Chile pages, we can see that Panini used several basic Adidas tracksuit designs and photoshopped the players' heads onto them. As we can see in the example of Tapia, Margas, Rojas and Zamorano. The tracksuit is the same, only the head has been replaced. It is the Adidas Classic Beckenbauer tracksuit. Named after a very famous German footballer, it made its debut back in 1967. Adidas was the technical sponsor of the Chilean national team from 1978 to 1984, 1988-1989 and 1993 to 1994.

-same Adidas tracksuit but different heads

-Adidas Classic Beckenbauer tracksuit (or something like that) which Panini used for the Chilean players for the 1998 WC album

Salo S.A. was a Chilean company founded in 1962. Interestingly, at that time Panini had already released its first album of the Italian Serie A. The story begins as written in 1962 when Chile was preparing to host the best football players in the world. Don Salo, the owner of several pastry shops in downtown Santiago, decided to turn his business around because there was a sugar shortage in the country and his shops were on the verge of bankruptcy. He came up with the idea of publishing and album with stickers for the World Cup that was taking place in his country. It was a combination of stickers and sweets that you could buy in his shop, and you also got stickers with them. The album was so successful that even five Citroens were given away to collectors. In 1974, Salo was taken over by professionals, and their main preoccupation was album stickers and later on cards. They were present, apart from Latin America, in various other countries like Germany, Belgium, England, Spain... Throughout their history, they have released many albums of the Chilean championship, the Copa America, the World Cup... The company disbanded in January 2010 when Panini took over in June. The following year, they released their first album of the Chilean league. 

-1998 World Cup album by Salo

Below you can see the Chile national team from the 1998 FIFA World Cup album by Salo. As we can see, the football federation's emblem was used, not the national flag. They players are also in their original jerseys.


Something that caught my eye while writing this text is that some of the player photos are the same in both albums. And here with Salo we can see some of the profile pictures (stickers) where we have the original jersey with Reebok markings while some have it repainted in red (except for the collar). I used the legendary goal scorer Ivan Zamorano as an example.

-same picture but Panini used Adidas tracksuit to cover an original jersey

Here's another example of Chile for the World Cup album. The year is 1982. It should be noted that Panini had a partial license at the time. All the football player stickers in the album were released in Adidas tracksuit, which was the official manufacturer of equipment for the Chilean national team at the time. All except one, and that was Mario Galindo. Obviously, they didn't have or didn't get a picture of Galindo in an Adidas tracksuit, so they had to use their Photoshop skills and color the aforementioned players' jersey in this way. It seems they didn't really succeed. 

-Galindo Panini World Cup 1982 sticker

And finally, the Chilean edition of the album for the 2010 championship does not contain the classic player profile pictures, but rather they are "in play" format. The rest of the world had the classic stickers that all the other national teams had in the album. The Salo company went bankrupt in 2010, but they still had a contract with the Chilean football federation, which still caused problems for the Italian Panini. 

Panini is lucky that Chile only qualified for the World Cup finals four times between 1974 and 2010. Who knows what other creations they would have.

-Collages of the Chile team from the 1998 Panini WC album. Marcelo Salas' sticker was not published in the regular edition of the album, but Panini later published it in some kind of a book or similar. Also, in the original edition of the album, there is no team sticker.

Sunday, June 28, 2026

WORLD CUP 2026 NATION PRESENTATION: ALGERIA

NICKNAME: The Desert Warriors

MANAGER: Vladimir Petković

MOST CAPPED PLAYER: Aissa Mandi- 121 cap from 2014

TOP SCORER: Islam Slimani- 45 goals from 2012

HOST NATION: -

WORLD CUP RECORD: From 1930 to 1962 they were part of France. 5th WC for Algeria

BEST RESULT: Round of 16 in 2014

Friday, June 26, 2026

WORLD CUP 2026 NATION PRESENTATION: SENEGAL

NICKNAME: Lions of Teranga

MANAGER: Pape Thiaw

MOST CAPPED PLAYER: Idrissa Gueye- 133 caps from 2011

TOP SCORER: Sadio Mane- 55 goals from 2012

HOST NATION: -

WORLD CUP RECORD: From 1930 to 1954 they were part of France. 4th World Cup for Lions

BEST RESULT: Quarter-final in 2002