Selection: who appears in the Panini album of the Copa América 2024 and why it has generated so much controversy on social networks

“Remember that a good fan completes the album before starting the tournament,” says the advertising for La Casa de las Figuritas, the paradise for album collectors in Peru. The pre-sale has started. The Panini collection for the 2024 Copa América is made up of 430 stickers (within 30 holograms). For each box you have the option of getting 1 extra sticker (there are 16 exclusive models in normal, gold, silver and bronze versions).

Like opening a family photo album, hundreds of collectors will be teary-eyed at this preview.

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It is 2018. Jack Hurtado opened the door of his house in Jesús María with the precautions of someone who takes care of the BCR vault: he looked at both sides, listening; He manipulated a Cantol, an alarm went off on his cell phone and then the hinges squeaked until it closed again. He had reasons: ten thousand pieces of his collection of albums, objects and other souvenirs about Peruvian and world football rested in sealed boxes, airtight bags and half-raised display cases, and we were there to know that this hobby, this obsession that was born in 2004 , just the year of Peru’s return to the World Cup, it was going to become a work: the first Museum of Football Collectibles.

While we were taking some photos for the magazine, fall 2018, my distracted foot broke one of the windows. Jack Hurtado, the boy who today has begun to fulfill another dream with his company, looked at the scene and just said to me: “Don’t worry, the glass is being replaced. What is inside is what needs to be taken care of. In a few years, this Panini Copa América will also be historic, because it will be the last time that Paolo Guerrero appears.”

He rescued the album Ídolos, from 1969, regarding the classification to México 70, and carried it as if it were a puppy.

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Jack Hurtado is also the promoter of La Casa de las Figuritas. What is known about the new Panini album for the 2024 Copa América, a week after Jorge Fossati’s first call-up to the national team? “The craziest new features of this album are the inclusion of 16 extra stickers that are not pasted on the album but are kept separate and unpasted. They are the 16 best players from each country and come in 4 formats: base, silver, bronze and gold. That is, 4 different backgrounds of the same figurine and they are mega difficult. You get 1 in each box of 50 envelopes. And believe me, there will be some crazy person who will invest in 64 boxes to get all the extra stickers,” he says.

And what’s the controversy? It is already a discussion on Twitter: the Peruvian team is the only one that does not come out with an official t-shirt, but instead appears with the collectible vintage Adidas jackets, and this would be because Peru did not have official photos with the new t-shirt and that is why Panini had to use those. A question of time, sponsors, emergencies.