Panini LegendsA new book on the Cult of Soccer Stickers, contains 85 icons such as Pelé, Diego Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore and Lionel Messi, Marta, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo and Alexia Putellas, among many.
Written by Greg Lansdowne, each of the 85 stars presented contains a selection of photos of the player shown in the Panini stickers from his or her career. In addition, there is a brief biography and a list of which Panini albums that the star pops up. For the stars that are more collectible, the book contains insight into how much some of the individual stickers have sold for at auction.
Although it is with legends all over the world, the book is certainly more British centered. For example, the first six of the seven players are British. Keegan, Dalgish, Bale, Gascoigne, Lineker and Beckham. The exception is Diego Maradona. It would have been more interesting to spread the British stars throughout the book instead of being so much British heavy on the opening pages.
Still, there are many other players to browse through players from all over the world.
Panini Legends Book Review: Is it worth buying?
Beautifully illustrated, Panini Legends Is more useful as a reference book, stocking stops or collectibles for enthusiasts who collect Panini Soccer Stickers. Certainly, however, it is interesting to open several pages where it discusses the increase in the popularity of Panini Soccer Stickers, especially the interest in stickers for women’s football competitions such as Women’s World Cup.
All in all, however, it is best experienced as a book to browse through. Each player’s story in Panini stickers is not to read material even for someone like myself who is obsessed with collecting Panini stickers.
So the book stops being more visually appealing than an interesting reading. For many fans it is good in itself. It is the perfect coffee table book for Diehard football fans.
Speaking of pictures, it is eye-opening to see how some players look so different from year to year in the Panini stickers. You can see Thierry Henry practically transform his appearance on the pages of this book. On the other hand, Mo Salah looks the same now as he did in his early Panini sticker photographs in Fiorentina and as Roma.
Overall, there are more than 900 stickers in the book, so there is much to look at even though the reading is less interesting.
MSRP $ 24.00; 240 pages. Available on Amazon and other nice bookstores.
