[attach id=337086 size="medium"]Photo: Paul Spiteri Lucas[/attach]

With just a month to go before the 2014 World Cup, collecting the stickers to complete the iconic Panini album has now reached fever pitch.

However, while for most people completing the album is only limited to the particular football event, for Aldo Bugeja and Noel Cassar it has been a lifelong passion dating back to 1970 when the Italian company issued the first collection.

The two men, both avid collectors of any football albums issued by Panini, have full complete sets – sometimes up to three copies of each edition – each one carefully filled with the stickers neatly stuck in their slots.

Their costly passion, even though neither mentioned any figures, gives them hours of pleasure and relaxation, even if it is just going through the albums.

Mr Bugeja’s love affair started when, aged seven, he got his first album of the 1982 World Cup.

Collecting sticker albums will always be popular. It is something that you can keep and go back to

“I was young and loved filling it in, but then the fire for collecting sort of died down,” he said.

His album frenzy picked up again in 2002 for the Korea/Japan edition when the sticker swapping and trading started at work.

He has even managed to collect a sealed packet of stickers to keep with each album.

“I have three copies of each – I’m still missing two copies of Mexico 1970 – and I want to give one set each to three of my children.” The fourth will receive his complete collection of Panini Calciatori albums.

Mr Bugeja’s search for stickers included resorting to the internet and waiting outside Anastasi’s shop in Merchants Street, Valletta, to swap stickers. There were also cases of people hearing about his collection and approaching him: “Once, I was on a television programme and one of the cameramen offered me an album.”

People would hear through the grapevine that he was looking for stickers or albums and get in touch with him.

He is a stickler for detail. The stickers had to be precisely aligned in their slots and the scores must never be written down in the album, he said.

It should be handled as little as possible so that it remains in good condition and Mr Bugeja carefully seals the albums in plastic, opening them every now and again to air them.

Mr Cassar started his collection with the Mexico 1970 edition, when he was 10, and continued over the years.

“My mother and father loved football and I picked it up,” he said, adding he was a huge Juventus fan.

He has completed all the albums up to this year, buying extra boxes of stickers and reserve albums and keeps them, including the empty and sealed ones.

“In the past, you could complete an album with one box of stickers but nowadays you need at least a box and a half, if not two,” Mr Cassar said.

Like Mr Bugeja, he managed to complete the World Cup 2014 album in just two weeks but admitted that he had to wait outside Mr Anastasi’s store twice to find the stickers he needed.

He keeps an eye out for different editions of World Cup albums such as the Swiss version, for example, which includes a pullout section with the Swiss team, or the UK hardback version – the first of its kind – of World Cup 2014.

The different features of the albums give them added value.

“I have a copy of France 1998, which didn’t include the photos of the Iranian players because the Iranian government did not allow Panini to take the photos.

“Six months later, Panini released a cut-out sheet with photos of the players in the UK paper The Observer and I have a copy.

“It is a great hobby and brings back a lot of memories of exchanging stickers at school, in the playground or at the office.

“It’s so nostalgic going through them. The albums are also a great reference point if anyone wants information about the players or dates,” he said.

Both avid collectors of Panini football albums, the men have complete collections of the Calciatori and European Cup editions, among others, and chose the Mexico 1970 issue as their favourite.

“Collecting sticker albums will always be popular. It is something that you can keep and go back to,” Mr Cassar said.

The crowd that gathers outside Mr Anastasi’s Panini shop to swap duplicate football stickers include men, women and boys from all walks of life.

Mr Anastasi has had exclusive rights to sell Panini stickers in Malta since 1970.

He spends Mondays to Saturdays at his shop, then on Sundays he heads to his store where he painstakingly goes through thousands of stickers and matches them to lists sent to him by enthusiasts who need a final few to complete their albums.