Panini Legends, a new book about the cult of soccer stickers, features 85 icons such as Pelé, Diego Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer, and Bobby Moore as well as Lionel Messi, Marta, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Alexia Putellas, among many others.
Written by Greg Lansdowne, each of the 85 stars featured includes a selection of photos of the player as featured in Panini stickers from his or her career. Plus there’s a short biography and a list of which Panini albums the star appears in. For the stickers of the stars that are more collectible, the book includes insight into how much some of those individual stickers have sold for at auction.
While featuring legends worldwide, the book is certainly more British-centric. For example, the first six of the seven players featured are British. Keegan, Dalglish, 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 very British-heavy in the opening pages.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of other players to browse through of players from around the world.
Panini Legends book review: Is it worth purchasing?
Beautifully illustrated, Panini Legends is more helpful as a reference book, stocking stuffer, or collector’s item for enthusiasts who collect Panini soccer stickers. Certainly, however, the opening several pages where it discusses the rise in popularity of Panini soccer stickers is interesting, particularly the interest in stickers for women’s soccer competitions such as the Women’s World Cup.
Overall, though, it’s best experienced as a book to flick through. Each player’s history in Panini stickers isn’t must-read material even for someone like myself who is obsessed with collecting Panini stickers.
So, the book ends up being more visually appealing than an interesting read. For many fans, that’s fine in itself. It’s the ideal coffee table book for diehard soccer fans.
Speaking of visuals, it’s 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 look in the pages of this book. On the other hand, Mo Salah looks the same now as he did in his early Panini sticker photographs at Fiorentina and AS Roma.
All in all, there are more than 900 stickers featured in the book, so there’s plenty to look at even if the reading is less interesting.
MSRP $24.00; 240 pages. Available on Amazon and at other fine booksellers.
