The 2018 World Cup is in full swing and my DVR is overflowing with games to watch.  I enjoy regular season soccer and certainly enjoy watching the big tournaments, especially the World Cup.

Despite playing for several years, my son has not shown much interest in watching the professionals; however, this World Cup, he’s starting to join in the frenzy, if ever so slightly.  I think some of his new found enthusiasm is due to the World Cup sticker album we purchased for him.

Available on Amazon, the standard set comes with a book and a box of 650 stickers.  The stickers are mostly individual photos of the players.  The idea is that you open each, individually wrapped sticker, find the player’s country and location on the page and affix the sticker to that spot.  It seems like a great way to get acquainted with the teams and individual players.

Of course, there are over 700 participants in the World Cup, so your box of stickers won’t have all the players you need.  Plus, you tend to get duplicates–we had about 40 duplicate players in our first box.  In theory, my boy’s friends have their own sets, have different duplicates, and then trade their duplicates with one another in order to complete their sets.  In practice, none of his friends have these sets so we bought him another box that will hopefully include the remaining stickers he needs.

As we watch the games, he will look up each team and the players in order to better identify them on the field.  He will also record the game scores in the schedule included in the book.

Overall, I think this set has provided an effective way for my son to enjoy the games and participate at some level.  Plus, years from now, the book should hold warm memories of the times we all gathered as a family to enjoy the 2018 World Cup.