MÜNCHEN 74 After the sunshine of Mexico, the World Cup came back to Europe in 1974. West Germany had to find an answer to the ‘Total Football’ of the Dutch, while Panini also left their rivals stuck for a response. Panini may be synonymous with stickers, but their first World Cup album – Mexico 70 – had been predominantly made up of cards. However, München 74 went down as a landmark album for the company as it was their first allsticker World Cup album. Compared to Mexico 70, the follow-up was very text-heavy, with painstaking translations of the entire album into six different languages – international sales of their first World Cup album had given Panini the confidence to dip their toes into more regions. The album increased in scope from 288 cards and stickers to 400 stickers. As an officially licensed product, all the tournament branding was on show, including mascots Tip and Tap – a pair of smiling youths – who had a further nine stickers later in the album in various action poses. An eight-sticker puzzle of the Jules Rimet Trophy followed, along with a similar montage of its replacement for the 1974
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tournament a few pages on. The new trophy stood 36.8cm high, weighed 6.1kg and depicted two humans holding up the Earth. An historical section consisted of four stickers for each of the previous World Cup finals – made up of the official poster, winning team shot and significant action or players. Each stadium was depicted with a single photograph along with a map indicating its location (one of which was in West Berlin, a political enclave during the Cold War). Then came the national team pages – West Germany had 25 stickers while Australia and Zaire had only nine. Each team had three staple stickers – a (nonshiny) badge of their football federation, a team group and a caricature depicting a cartoon figure engaging with a national stereotype, such as a kangaroo for Australia, maracas for Brazil and bagpipes for Scotland. West Germany, Brazil and Italy really had the boat pushed out
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