Family embraces culture, tradition in hunt for World Cup stickers

The World Cup is underway, but for many fans, the excitement began weeks ago, not with a kickoff, but with stickers.Every World Cup brings another chance for fans to complete the iconic Panini World Cup Sticker Collection, and one Brookline, New Hampshire, family is embracing the tradition together.Seven-year-old Michael O’Sullivan and his parents are massive soccer fans. His father, Ronan, is from Ireland, and his mother, Tilly, is from Mexico. Both remember collecting stickers as children.”My first World Cup that I remember was Zico from Brazil in 1986,” Ronan O’Sullivan said. The goal is simple: collect every unique sticker in the catalog. But with the World Cup expanding from 32 to 48 teams this year, the challenge has grown, too. There are 980 stickers to collect this year, 310 more than in 2022.”You try to fill them up, and that’s the fun of it, trying to get them all,” Tilly O’Sullivan said.Michael and his family have perfected their system.”Well, I sort of play two roles,” Michael said. “My first role is to open the packs, look through them, sort them by team, and then see their numbers, get them from lowest to highest, then get them to my dad for him to check off. Then we see if there’s any duplicates, and then it goes to my mom for stickering and checking for any other duplicates. That’s mostly the whole process.””People just love that enjoyment when they open that pack of stickers with their favorite player,” said Panini spokesperson Jason Howarth.The O’Sullivans are now just 30 stickers away from completing their collection. To find those final elusive stickers, fans often turn to the worldwide trading community built around the hobby.Collectors connect through social media, meeting up to swap duplicates and help complete each other’s sets.But getting the stickers in the first place can be difficult.”The stores sell out of the books and stickers really fast,” Ronan O’Sullivan said. “When they first came to market, they showed up in our Walgreens and were gone the next day.”The O’Sullivans have already traveled across New Hampshire to trade with other collectors.”We’ve had people from Concord, Manchester, Nashua. We went and met with them,” Ronan O’Sullivan said.For Michael and his family, though, the collection is about more than just finishing the book. His parents say it is also a way to connect with their different cultural backgrounds and share their love of the game.”As a multicultural family, we want him to grow up with the best of all three of us,” Tilly O’Sullivan said. “We want him to learn about Mexico. We want him to learn about Ireland. We also want him to learn about America. I think sports is a great way of bringing up good things.””It helps grow knowledge and pass on that knowledge of teams and players that would not necessarily get the limelight,” Ronan O’Sullivan said. “It is something we do together, all three of us. That part is really nice too.”And Michael enjoys it just as much as his parents.”I think it’s really great collecting them with your parents and asking your mom, ‘Can we go to this store?’ or ‘Can we do some swapping?'” he said.