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Around the World: Germany
THE MANAGERS
While players have generally been photographed wearing standard-issue team shirts, there has been more scope for individualism among the managers featured in Panini albums.
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Since winning the Premier League license from 2019–20, Panini have opted to print images of managers in albums. This is because so many managers get sacked so quickly these days that collectors could have found themselves picking up recurring Unai Emery and Mauricio Pochettino stickers despite their respective departures from Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur before Football 2020 had been released.
But it wasn’t always like that. When Panini issued their first UK domestic album, Football 78, there was a little more permanence about the position of a football manager. For example, Football 78 heralded an unbroken spell of 14 appearances in the Nottingham Forest manager’s spot for Brian Clough – his run only ended when English Football 1992 only featured player stickers. While Clough mixed up his attire over the years it is somewhat surprising to discover his trademark green jersey was rarely on display.
Smart suits, sheepskin coats, colourful shirt and tie combinations, and even a natty cardigan (Eddie Turnbull of Hibernian in Football 78) were displayed by managers in early UK Panini albums.
Ron Atkinson won the prize for most sartorially elegant manager during the 1980s, although French albums of the 1970s and ’80s arguably provide the best entraineur (coach) entertainment (Strasbourg’s Gilbert Gress in France’s version of Football 78 is a sticker for the ages).
With managers having been fazed out from the ‘90s onwards in both Panini UK and international tournament albums, attention has since turned to hunting out modern-day coaches in strikingly different guises during their playing days. One of the delights of Panini is spotting managerial titans such as Pep Guardiola, Franz Beckenbauer, Fabio Capello, Martin Jol and Steve Bruce in their previous roles as players, and the fine contributions they made to the game before donning a manager’s suit, tracksuit or cardigan.
