{"id":768,"date":"2026-06-30T10:37:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:37:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:37:32","slug":"the-joyful-pointlessness-of-world-cup-sticker-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><span><em>You\u2019re reading <strong>Fault Lines<\/strong>, Jay Caspian Kang\u2019s weekly column on politics and the media.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>For the past two weeks, my nine-year-old daughter and her friends have been obsessing over Panini\u2019s World Cup sticker books. The tradition, which started in 1970, after a few Italian brothers who ran a newspaper business decided to get into collectible stickers, is very simple: kids get a book with a space for every player in the tournament, and then they buy packs of stickers, each of which has a photo of a player and some basic data: his name, what country he represents, and so on. Unlike modern sports trading cards, which are not only hefty but often bedazzled with autographs, jersey patches, and random holograms, the Panini stickers are flimsy and meant to be abused. After seeing which players they got, kids unpeel the stickers and put them in their assigned spots. The point is to try to fill up the book, or at least the page, with your favorite team, and then to trade any duplicates or unwanteds with your friends. My daughter, for example, has a Cristiano Ronaldo sticker that we haven\u2019t yet put in her book because I have successfully propagandized her against him. We are looking to trade Ronaldo for a lot of Koreans.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=766\">An Ecuadorian Fishing Boat Disappears Amid Trump\u2019s Strikes in the Pacific<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been trying to figure out why this hobby feels so wholesome. The most obvious explanation is that the sticker books are inherently nostalgic, transporting parents to their own childhoods, when they were trying to find Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho or David Beckham. What this means, one hopes, is that there is a limit to how much the books will be ruined by our modern, digitized, and optimization-obsessed culture, because it\u2019s hard to feel nostalgic when something you used to care about gets converted into a bunch of drop-down menus and a payment layer. (There is a Panini app, with a \u201cdigital sticker book,\u201d because how could there not be, but it\u2019s not nearly as popular as the analog system: physical book, physical stickers.)<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The stickers have also mostly evaded the gambling spirit that has taken over sports-card collecting over the past thirty years, in which the entire point of the activity is to find extremely rare \u201cinserts\u201d that can be sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Instead of looking for a ticket to Willy Wonka\u2019s chocolate factory, children are trying to find some ultra-rare Victor Wembanyama card that they can sell on eBay or to some unscrupulous reseller who makes his money manipulating children. As with digitization, Panini hasn\u2019t entirely avoided it: there <em>is<\/em> a market for stickers with \u201crare\u201d borders, plus a few one-of-one collectibles\u2014a black-bordered Messi sticker might fetch you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But the prices for the vast majority of stickers are pretty low, which means that no vulture is out there buying up all the sticker packs and trying to resell them at inflated prices to impressionable children hoping to win the lottery.<\/p>\n<p>This market inefficiency is almost certainly an accident. In May, <em>FIFA<\/em> announced that it would be ending its partnership with Panini, and that, from 2031 going forward, Fanatics, a sports-apparel company mostly known for poor quality and rapacious expansion, will take over the official sticker business. One can comfortably speculate that the Fanatics version will be more expensive, more gambling-driven, less fun, and full of knock-on costs and upsells that try to exploit a children\u2019s game. This is not to say that Panini are saints or immune to the lure of making money, only that they haven\u2019t yet been able to wreck the joyful pointlessness of what they created more than fifty years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=764\">My Great Meeting with God<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As a parent of a nine-year-old and a three-year-old, I\u2019ve found myself thinking quite a bit about pointlessness in general lately. Sometimes I\u2019ll drive the nine-year-old to soccer training or a math class or what-have-you, and if every minute doesn\u2019t feel optimized, I\u2019ll quietly tell my wife that it was a waste of time and that we are not going back, even if I\u2019m certain that our daughter had a lot of fun. Or I\u2019ll be talking to other parents of three-year-olds about what shows they allow their children to watch and I\u2019ll realize that all of us have an ad-hoc and mostly arbitrary value system whereby some shows (CoComelon, say, or a YouTube toys series) are regarded as pointless and to be rigorously avoided, while others (Ms. Rachel, \u201cBluey,\u201d Mr. Rogers) are seen as conveying information, or good cheer, or some other valuable side effect. Within this cloud of anxious expectation, I suppose it\u2019s nice to watch children do something so unoptimized and noneducational, even wasteful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The Panini books are plainly ephemeral, fun for the duration of the tournament and then quickly forgotten\u2014once a nine-year-old peels a sticker and slaps it down at some god-awful and honestly cringe-inducing angle in their book, any potential monetary value of that sticker is lost. My favorite Panini story from this World Cup is that of a kid who apparently stuck a one-of-one Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez in their book, thereby negating almost all of its value. Good for them. The sticker belongs in the sticker book. And, later, you throw the sticker book away.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=762\">The Natural Memory of Kabir Sehgal<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jay Caspian Kang on collectible World Cup sticker books made by the Italian company Panini.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fault-lines"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jay Caspian Kang on collectible World Cup sticker books made by the Italian company Panini.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768\"},\"wordCount\":927,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Fault Lines\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768\",\"name\":\"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=768#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"City Relocation News\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News","og_description":"Jay Caspian Kang on collectible World Cup sticker books made by the Italian company Panini.","og_url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768","og_site_name":"City Relocation News","article_published_time":"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00","author":"admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"admin","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768"},"author":{"name":"admin","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4"},"headline":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books","datePublished":"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768"},"wordCount":927,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp","articleSection":["Fault Lines"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768","name":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books - City Relocation News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp","datePublished":"2026-06-30T10:37:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0ff10369e831897c1c0f2a055abde59d.webp","width":1280,"height":720},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=768#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Joyful Pointlessness of World Cup Sticker Books"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/","name":"City Relocation News","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4","name":"admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50b1ad2e498f523425ee0a8cc5180a210646db1622662a3d56cc405d3e0c346a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"admin"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com"],"url":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?author=1"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}