Stickers: World Cup Day 25

    So, the World Cup is over  but the sticker collecting goes on.  The predicted 2-1 to the land of silver went awry as they won silver.  An extra time goal from the bloggers' favourite Chas und Dave song, Götze.   And my bet from roughly a fortnight ago that Germany would win the Cup comes in. Bastian Schweinsteiger makes it through 120 minutes despite a "punch in the face" from Sergio Aguero that left a cut on his cheek.  The Argentina team group seems rather ironic given the eventual result and Rodrigo Palacio comes on in the 78th minute and misses a gilt-edged chance


Via affaritaliani.it

by trying to lift it over Neuer.  He also showcases  his awful rat's tail ponytail, which doesn't make up for the male pattern baldness which can't be seen from his World cup sticker, but is fairly obvious, along with the rat's tail trying to hide itself inside his shirt through shame, in a card showing him in his Genoa days.  He looks surprisingly like former Exeter City striker Daniel Nardiello.

Missing:  85 (hence got 555)

Swaps:         482
Complete sets: Colombia, Ivory Coast, Japan, Italy, Ecuador, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran and Germany.

      Least:              10   Cameroon and  South Korea (but also missing 8 of 24 stadium stickers)

      Most Swaps:    30   Iran  
                               28   Croatia, France

      Least Swaps:   2    South Korea
                              3    Cameroon and Belgium, and those Belgian swaps were all in the
                                    last six packets.

      Complete Pages:   31

      Most Individual Swaps: 3  Nineteen different stickers

    Longest Sequence of Stickers:   61   Numbers  421 - 481

    Longest missing sequence:    9   Numbers 627 - 635

     Betting total:      -£13.32

     I bought 40 more packets from the Co-op, in the belief that an average of one new sticker per packet - roughly what I was averaging near the end - will see me below 50 stickers.  I was served by a Polish assistant that a mate of mine thinks is mad.  He counted the packets silently, I was tempted to count them out loud but I'd have been counting in English and he'd probably be counting mentally in Polish.  In the first ten packets I get 9 new stickers.  A fair start, but below the required rate.
     Today I read of a guy who finished his 1996 Premiership sticker album by tracking down the six players he still needed - I don't fancy tracking down assorted Australians, Bosnians and South Koreans in nearly 20 years time.  But then he threw his album in the sea and wrote a book. Bloody publicity hound.

Via whoateallthepies.tv

     Before moving on, and I will be back with an epilogue or possibly more, there's something that's been bugging me for most of the tournament: why was Reni, the drummer of The Stone Roses, so keen to see the back of Spain ?

Via john-squire.com