Thursday, April 22, 2010

Jan Wouters' Comedy Moustache

Courtesy of The Guardian's football website, I've come across this scanned copy of the complete Italia 90 Panini sticker album.
 
This was, I think, the first football sticker album I owned, or I at least had the British version of it. But I came nowhere near to finishing it.
 
1990 was when I began taking a serious interest in football, and watching matches from that year's World Cup is still a fond memory from my childhood.
 
It's interesting looking back at the members of some of the squads who were stars at the time but who have been forgotten in the intervening two(!) decades, or those who achieved much more after the tournament.
 
Scotland's defence looks impressively solid - Miller, McLeish, Gough, Malpas and Gillespie (and Dave McPherson). Andy Goram (or one of them) and Stuart McCall look so fresh-faced.
 
The hairdos sported by the two Colombian goalkeepers are fantastic - and you'd have thought that Carlos Valderama would easily scoop the worst haircut award from that squad.
 
I very much doubt that any of the players in the book are still playing today, but Paolo Maldini, who turned 22 during Italia 90, isn't long retired.
 
And finally, 20 years later, the name of South Korea's Sang-Bum Gu, which Baby Brother and I found so amusing in 1990, still makes me smile.
 
 

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