Merlin World Cup 90 Sticker Collection

As we've already seen, I'm not averse to treading a non-Panini sticker book path and here again, we take a look at someone other than the mighty P attempting a sticker collection of their own.

This time it's Merlin, who had only come into existence the year before, with only their 2nd attempt - the first was Team 90, which I'll review another time. While Team 90 covered the domestic league, for their second outing, they went international with their first World Cup collection.

As with Team 90, which featured flip-book style goal animations on the corners of each page, 'The World Cup Sticker Collection - Italia 90' featured its own little extra hook to reel you in. This idea was fully integrated not only with the album, but the stickers themselves.

So long as the value of...ah whatever!

The gimmick, for that's what it was, known as 'Merlin's World Super League Soccer Game', or MWSLSG for short, was a full on game you and your friends could play, complete with game board (centre pages pull-out) and money a la Monopoly.

The inside cover details the (very lengthy) rules, which basically amount to...you know what, I've tried to get the gist of the thing, but trying to wade through that lot is like slow death.

Money, Money, Money!

A neat feature and one that shows the thought that went into the album, is the sticker backs. Rather than being the usual disposable sheets that Panini would have you throw in the bin, Merlin had the clever idea of using them as extra currency for the MWSLSG game, so each sticker back is a note of a certain denomination...I'd like to be able to confirm that this matched the player value of the sticker, but alas, I don't have any unused stickers to check and I also can't remember.

Bored game?

£3m? That's a lot of crisps Mr. L!

One thing I love about the game rules is the little disclaimer at the end, which informs us that the value shown against each player is ONLY for the purposes of MWSLSG and is in no way intended to represent the true value of the player in any real currency... Just as well as Mr. Lineker would appear to be rather overvalued given his then-recent £1.2m transfer from Barcelona to Spurs.

Anyway, enough of the sideline, let's get down to business - the business of stickerage!

The 1st page in the book shows the venues that were to be used for Italia 90, many of them still under construction at the time the photos were taken. Genoa, built in 2 halves as it was, looks like some five-a-side ground as one half was demolished and the angle of the shot occludes any of the completed side.

The first sticker in the book is reserved for...a sticker! Despite having 2 albums, neither of them has the first sticker in, though I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume it's the World Cup trophy...anyone that can confirm this for me, I'd be very grateful.



The following pages detail the history of the World Cup from 1930-1986, each one granted a neat little summary of the tournament and a sticker featuring a photo of the winning team.

While this sort of thing is standard fare in World Cup albums, the execution from Merlin is first class and is so much more than the usual "Team Photo + Final Result" that goes in these things.

After the history, comes the present and so we move into the team pages. First up we find the teams from Group A, starting with England...wait a minute, they weren't in Group A...of course, this album isn't being produced for a worldwide audience so there's no need to do things in the official tournament order. As it is, the 3 home teams are included - we're including Eire here because...well they were all English anyway ;-)

There's the usual team shot and foil badge, though they've opted to only show the nation's flags, possibly down to the copyright issues that now blight all Panini albums. Alongside the stickers, there's also the familiar 'Past Performances' and 'How They Qualified' sections showing the results from previous world cups and the current tournament's qualification scores.

Bless...

It's also here we first properly appreciate the shape of the stickers. While Panini has their standard portrait / landscape format, while also utilising the not-always-successful multi-sticker picture, here, Merlin have opted for one format only - a surprisingly prescient widescreen style.

While this lends itself rather well to team photos, as demonstrated here by Scotland (in a World Cup? I know!), it naturally doesn't quite work so well for player head shots. But wait, what's that there on the right of the players' mug-shots? Why it's all the info you need to play MWSLSG! Genius!

Camer-who? Nah, they'll do nothing...

The rest of the teams are then shown in alphabetical order, barring what were obviously deemed the lesser nations, who only get a foil and team sticker. There's only 6 teams given this treatment and ironically, given the impact they had at Italia 90, the first of these is Cameroon! The others are pretty much fair play, consisting of USA, Costa Rica, UAE, South Korea and Egypt.

Looking through the team stickers, it's obvious this album suffers from the same problem that all non-Panini ones seem to...the player shots are not staged photos and so we're treated to a variety of backgrounds and kits. While this isn't a huge issue, it just adds to that slightly cheaper feel, like getting your favourite band's calendar from a market stall rather than an established retailer.

The final page of the album is the standard 'How To Complete' your collection. Interestingly, unlike the usual Panini 50 stickers, here, you can only order up to 30 and no more than 5 of those can be foil ones. Each sticker is a mere 4p and they don't even charge for postage! Just do NOT send stamps or cash!

Bum bags and turquoise...Hello The 90s!

The back cover is a huge advert featuring "Wizard Offers From Merlin" (see what they did there?), which is actually a bunch of stuff from Quaser, a sports company once fronted by Mr Lineker. Apart from some boots and trainers, the remaining items for sale take me right back to my school days. Bum bags, giant "sac" bags (coffin bags as my house-head used to call them) and pencil case sized mini replicas of them.

I had a 'Head' one of the latter and usually a Puma one of the midi size for my school bag. They lasted barely a term, but they were freaking awesome! I always wanted an electric blue one with green piping, but they weren't cheap, unlike the navy n red one you could get from Argos. Er...where was I?

Finally, from the back cover shot, you can see the album cost 40p...though mine was free with the Sunday Post newspaper and I can still remember it making the perfect start to my easter hol as it flopped through the door on the first day. Ah memories!

Matthew Wassell's Top 5 International 'Do you remember when?' Moments of the 1990's

The Football Attic welcomes aboard Matthew Wassell to the guest-writing fraternity as he carefully picks out his favourite monumental football moments from two decades ago... 

Last week my boss mentioned that he’d been telling his two young children about “that Colombian keeper who did the scorpion kick” and played them the YouTube footage on his iPhone. “Ah Rene Higuita! I remember that!” I exclaimed a bit too loudly. He went on unabashed. “Remember when Gazza scored that goal against Scotland in Euro '96? I was showing them that too.”  I did, and of course since that day, I've been trying to think of my top five international “do you remember when…?” moments which will hopefully be of use to anyone intent on educating their own children!



1. Rene Higuita v Cameroon (of course), World Cup 1990
Higuita had come into the tournament with something of a reputation as a 'sweeper keeper.' Not content with simply kicking long upfield or an underarm throw to the full back, he wanted to be more, to play a greater role and to show off some fancy footwork at the same time. Extra time in the second round of the World Cup against opponents who had already beaten the current world champions may not have been the most judicious time to try this out however. Receiving the ball some 20 yards outside of his area, Higuita attempted to trick his way past the onrushing Roger Milla but was robbed by the forward who simply ran on and stuck the ball into the empty net. Colombia went on to lose 2-1 and once again failed to get as far in the tournament as many expected.



2. Martin Palermo v Columbia, Copa America 1999
To take one penalty in a match and miss is common. Two less so. Three? Unheard of! That is until Martin Palermo stepped up and saw his final effort saved to his left by the Colombian goalkeeper Miguel Calero (who was somewhat off his line it must be said). Palermo’s first had crashed into the crossbar and his second had gone into orbit over the top, so he was certainly improving as he managed to get the third on target.  Nevertheless the damage had been done, a world record had been broken and now wherever you see the name 'Martin Palermo' on the internet, it is usually quickly followed by the words 'three penalty misses.'



3. Ronald Koeman v England, World Cup qualifier, 1993
Do I not like that?! Whether Koeman should even been on the pitch at the point when he floated a delightful free kick into Seaman’s top right hand corner is still a matter of debate. Although the professional foul hadn't been in existence long, if it was ever going to be applied it surely should have been a few moments earlier when Koeman brought down Platt just outside the area, but he was only booked. What happens next is ingrained in the memory forever… England lose 2-0, fail to qualify for USA '94 and Graham Taylor’s reign as manager comes to an inglorious end… almost…



4. David Gualtieri v England, World Cup qualifier, 1993
Can we have two moments from one qualifying campaign? Well it seems only right to mention this one! The match after Koeman effectively knocked England out in Rotterdam, they travelled to Bologna to face San Marino and expected an easy ride. San Marino kicked off and precisely 8.3 seconds later, had scored their first and indeed only goal of the group. Although England came back to win 7-1, it’s Gualtieri’s goal that sticks in the memory. Some intricate passing from the centre circle ends up with Stuart Pearce leaving a back pass hopelessly short and the forward nips in and slides the ball past Seaman. In all honesty, that one moment pretty much summed up England in this period between Italia '90 and Euro '96.



5. Dennis Bergkamp v Argentina, World Cup 1998
The 1980's had Van Basten’s legendary volley in the Euro ‘88 Final against the Soviet Union but the Dutch history-making moment of the 1990's belongs to Dennis Bergkamp. In the 90th minute of Holland’s quarter final against Argentina in France '98, Bergkamp magnificently brought down Frank de Boer’s 60-yard pass just outside the box, turned inside the defender and with the outside of his right foot, curved the ball into the roof of the net past the helpless Carlos Roa. Cue wild celebrations as Holland win 2-1 in Marseille! When watched live, it felt like history being written before your eyes and even now it is surely one of the World Cup’s most memorable moments: sublime skill and a perfect finish.



Our sincere thanks go to Matthew Wassell for writing this guest post, and if you'd like to write one too, do as he did - drop us a line to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com - and who knows... maybe we'll be featuring your post soon!