Pannini, 2002. — 67 c.
The Panini 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea Japan Sticker Album opens with no fanfare or introduction, just 4 simple stickers to set the scene, and a Roll of Honour showing prestigious winners of the world’s most prestigious footballing tournament, back to 1930. Stickers show on the opening page are a nice shiny of the trophy itself, an Official Emblem, Mascot and poster.
Turning the page, we are presented with the tournament programme, charting progress from the very first group stage games, to the Final. At the sides of the programme are stickers for each of the 20 stadia to be used in the tournament, split 10 for Korea and 10 for Japan. The Final was played in Japan at International Stadium Yokohama.
Panini plough straight into the teams now, with a double spread per country, all the way to the end where Panini seemed to have realised they’d run out of space, and in an attempt to rescue the situation have limited Russia, Tunisia and Ecuador to only a single page of football stickers each. In order to fit the whole squad into half the space they’ve allocated double player stickers here. The club pages show a team photo sticker, a badge shiny and a sticker per player, with simple information beneath each. The club page also shows each club’s qualifying results.
