I am a fan of the World Cup Soccer, and it’s on again ….. very soon. It will be held in 2018 in Russia from 14th June to 15th July. Here is the link to the official website.
As I love reading Programmes and Guides and anything else, I always have to get the Guide for the World Cup. This year I first bought the “Official 2018 FIFA World Cup Tournament Magazine” online. I really like it.
It has 175 pages with an exclusive interview with Pele, the road to Russia, the Host Venues, FIFA Fan Fest and information on each team by Groups. This is followed by the Golden Boot winners, being the top scoring goal-keepers from 1930 to 2014, the World Cup in numbers, an interview with Danish player Christian Eriksen, a great article titled “A Much Travelled Trophy” plus a terrific “20 Tournaments: Magic Memories” spanning 1930 to 2014, a “whistle-stop” tour of defining moments of all previous FIFA tournaments; and a fantastic article about the home of the FIFA World Cup trophy, the FIFA World Football Museum in Zurich, where you might bump into some of the famous soccer players who are visiting.
As if this is not enough, there is also information about the Referees, a fascinating history of changes to the soccer ball, and a quiz testing your knowledge about the past tournaments (with the answers upside down). I confess to having bought my Guide from eBay, and the good reason for that is it seems that official World Cup soccer magazines / guides are rare here where I live, in Western Australia, Down Under.
Note, that the Official Tournament Magazine has an A4 schedule of all Matches by local times in Russia (shown below), but no pull-out or inserted Scoring sheet or blank pages for recording match results.
If you live in Australia and want the television and radio broadcast times in hard copy (given in Eastern Standard Time), look no further than the SBS Guide.
SBS is Australia’s multicultural and multilingual broadcaster, and their Guide on the “World Game” or the FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament is a must-have, at least according to avid Soccer buffs. If you can’t find the SBS package at a news-agency, as I fortunately WAS able to do, perhaps head over to eBay to look for one.
This pack cost $13.95 which is a pretty penny, but includes not only the SBS FIFA World Cup broadcasting schedule as shown above, but also the beautiful blue Panini FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 Sticker Album and related goodies!!
These related goodies are a fabulous beautiful Adrenalyn XL foil iridescent Limited Edition trading card of Australian Socceroo player number 23, Tom Rogic, which glints marvellously when you tilt it, 6 different Player stickers, a blue and gold packet with 5 stickers (containing one or more types of stickers for your album, e.g. player stickers and stadium stickers) and 1 packet of Adrenalyn XL Trading Cards containing 6 cards.
My Limited Edition Adrenalyn XL trading card is shown below, and I am jolly pleased that it is of Tom Rogic, one of my favourites! Upon spying upon other SBS packages (meaning looking carefully at SBS FIFA Guides and Sticker Album packages on eBay) I found that any Adrenalyn XL trading card may come in a package (meaning not every SBS package has the Tom Rogic Adrenalyn XL card), so I got something that I really like. One Adrenalyn XL trading card comes by itself or stand-alone included in the SBS package.
You can download a good PDF review of all the Adrenalyn XL trading cards by clicking on the link below, then clicking on the red “button” Download the checklist.
https://fifaworldcup2018.paniniadrenalyn.com/en_au/collection/checklist
As if that wasn’t enough, my Adrenalyn XL packet included, amazingly, a gorgeous foil iridescent card of Rui Patricio, Goal Stopper of Portugal. I gave a yelp when I discovered my good luck, because I love the Portugal team, followed closely or perhaps equally by Argentina. My all time favourite player is Ronaldo or Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima, of Brazil, and after he retired in 2011, it has been Lionel Messi of Argentina.
So where do you get the Panini FIFA World Cup 2018 Sticker Album and the Stickers from, you may wonder? Well, supposedly the News agencies have them for sale, e.g. the blue packets of mixed cards at $1.50 AUD each in Australia. But wait ! There are MANY stickers for your Album, in fact, there are actually 682 stickers in total.
Yes, you can verify that for yourself by clicking here .
The above page provides a link to a complete check-list, and I have pasted that list into a Word document, which you access here if you like.
Below is a photo of the Cards that came in my Adrenalin XL packet, including my cherished Goal Stopper card.
Below is a section of my torn blue packet for the Adrenalin XL trading cards showing the break-down of 468 cards, including 9 Goal Stoppers ! I wondered if the 1 in 5 packets meant each packet of 5 would contain a Goal Stopper card, but decided that mustn’t be right. For starters, by parallel deduction, that would mean every packet of 5 should also have a Power and a Rising Star card, which they don’t, as my packet didn’t. Statistically, I deduce that, speaking overall, among all the packets ever produced, that 1 in 5 will contain a Rising Star card.
If you are wondering what the other Card types look like in this series, head over to eBay and search for something like Panini FIFA World Cup adrenalyn top master cards – and / or for information, look up the Panini website, e.g. the Australian site which lists the 5 special Top Masters cards and the 1 Invincible Card, is below.
Panini Australia FIFA World Cup Adrenalyn XL Trading Cards
If you have gathered or acquired some Stickers for your Album and are missing a few (or quite alot) you can trade on places like Facebook and / or buy “missing” stickers, from Panini, as shown on the Australian site below.
Panini Australia – FIFA World Cup Soccer
There is a completely DIGITAL OR ONLINE ALBUM that you can try out, if you want – link below.
https://paninistickeralbum.fifa.com/game/flash
Of course, Lionel Messi, the Little Master, is one of the Top masters !
To be honest, I prefer the Official Tournament Magazine, as far as a wealth of information is concerned; however I like the fact that the SBS Guide has expected Player line-ups, although of course the final teams won’t all be decided upon until early June.
You can watch an amazing video on YouTube, if you like, of someone showing off his completed Panini sticker album, below !
If you can’t find the SBS TV Guide for the World Cup and you live in Australia, head over to the page of the SBS site below, if you would like to plan ahead.
The World Game on SBS Australia
One disappointment with the SBS package this year is that a lift-out Wall Chart for recording the results is NOT included – as it was in the 2014 package ( see this post HERE from one of my other blogs, if you like ).
Of course because I LOVE to read & write (and record) I had to get something good in hard copy or physical to do my scoring ! So luckily I found a kid’s “World Cup 2018 Diary” — just the PERFECT thing for me to write the results in. I bought my copy from Wordery but it can probably be purchased from other good online book stores.
Last but not least in this marathon post, is a photo of the 1 “Invincible” card that I found on the internet.
UPDATES
Review of Panini Adrenalyn XL Trading Cards
YouTube video – unpacking the Adrenalyn XL Album and Starter Pack
From the video above I found out that the numbers in the lower corner refer to –
Control rate – the number at the top in blue (e.g. 82 for Tom Rogic)
Defence rate – the number on the left in red (e.g. 77 for Tom Rogic)
Attack rate – the number on the right in green (e.g. 78 for Tom Rogic)
Read my other Post reviewing the MATCH Diary & with more info about the cards, at the Link below.
Enjoy the FIFA 2018 World Cup!
Book Reviewers Online 
One reply on “FIFA World Cup Magazines & Panini Sticker Album”
Just realised the Adrenalyn XL packets contain 6 cards so my talking about 1 in 5 above is faulty math, LOL, never could add up very well.
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