SCOTT MCTOMINAY

he doesn’t quite understand the hype around these stickers, but he’s seated beside you on the ground of your hotel room with a horrible back ache, opening up hundreds of sticker packs.

“one of these days i’m going to get it.” you grumble slamming another useless pack down onto the floor, and begin to rip open another one.

“it’s not a big deal, you could just buy it eBay—“ he stops himself before continuing the words out of his mouth. he pulled a Scotland card, finally. SCO #11 was written on the back of the card and immediately he flips it over to find himself smiling at him.

“its you!” you squeal nearly tackling him over to grab the card from his hand, “oh my god you look so handsome!” you say immediately reaching for your phone to take a picture.

“I look kind of stupid, why did I smile like that?”

LAMINE YAMAL

peeling the sticker off the back of the coke bottle you let out an annoyed sigh, “kane again.”

“you have him already in your book?” Lamine asks, flipping to the back of the book where his sticker yet to remain in your book.

you’d become addicted to finding lamine, but have become unsuccessful. he’d asked volunteers and other employees whenever he spotted them drinking coke if they could open the label, but he too became unsuccessful in his search for himself.

“I have everyone but you! it’s like the fifa gods know I’m looking for you.” you toss the coke bottle into the recycling bin, and pick up another.

“why don’t I peel it? see if that does the trick.” he gestures for you to bring the bottle to him where he sat, and you happily do so. maybe he had the lucky touch that you didn’t.

slowly peeling the label, he revealed the sticker to you, “oh my god it’s you!” you yank the coke bottle from his hand—nearly taking his arm out of the socket— and carefully run over to the book to place him on the page.

“do I look good in the picture?” he asked. getting up from where he sat, he peered over the book to see his smiling self among the other stars.

“cool, right? you’re so famous, babe.”

KENAN YILDIZ

positioning the camera towards kenan beside you, he opens pack after pack while you sort the cards.

“I’m not sure I’m even in these.” he grumbled after getting another repeat of his teammate and tossing it aside in the ‘repeat pile’.

“every World Cup player is in these. we just have to find you.” you say taking the cards you didn’t have repeats of and sorted them out by country.

you’d already had the content you wanted for positing on social media, but you kept the camera rolling just to include content of kenan being a goof or his reactions to certain footballers he idolized.

“another türkiye— oh it’s me!” his voice went up a few octaves when he noticed himself on the card. excited, he ran up to your camera to show the card, “I look quite good in this picture.”