We bought 5,000 Panini World Cup 2018 stickers and still didn't complete the album

According to maths expert Professor Paul Harper, you’ll need to buy 967 packets, or 4,832 stickers, to complete the Panini World Cup 2018 sticker book. We decided to put this to the test. To see how many packs it really takes to complete the book, and find out who the rarest players are, we bought 1,000 packs of stickers.

Here’s what we found.

After opening all 1,000 packs (that’s 5,000 stickers) we still didn’t manage to complete the whole book. Out of the 682 stickers needed to complete the book, we managed to collect 681 - the elusive Radja Nainggolan remains at large!

Ironically, Radja Nainggolan isn’t even heading to the World Cup!

Got, Got, Got vs Need, Need, Need

Looking at the rarity of every player, we’ve created two new inter-nation teams – one made from the rarest of the rare, and one made from the most commonly found players.

Unsurprisingly there aren’t many familiar faces, but if you’re savvy you can use your knowledge to your advantage and snap up some uber-rare players to keep your booklet ahead of the game.

Which are the easiest and most difficult countries to complete?

Out of all 32 nations, we quickly realised that some were far easier to complete than others. Nations such as Senegal, Colombia, Egypt, Serbia and Iceland were completed in next to no time, while World Cup holders Germany found themselves in the middle of the medley alongside Denmark and Croatia.

Interestingly, countries such as Switzerland and Australia took hundreds of packs to complete, but Saudi Arabia were the most elusive.

Excluding Belgium (because of our beloved Radja Nainggolan), Saudi Arabia had the widest distribution of any nation. Their squad contained one of the most common of all stickers (Mansour Al-Harbi) and two of the rarest (Salman Al-Moasher and Motaz Hawsawi).

Until next time…

Now that we’ve finished our experiment, we’ve donated our 5,000 stickers and sticker books to Manchester Children’s Hospital, in the hope that they have just as much fun as we did!

Just remember, keep searching for Nainggolan!

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