Kindhearted boy, 5, mails final Fifa World Cup sticker from 7,000 miles away to help the Post complete Panini album

Young American sticker collector from California comes to the rescue after seeing video of South China Morning Post reporter’s Panini album heartbreak

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A picture of the letter sent by a young sticker collector from the United States to the Post. Photos: Nicolas Atkin

Published: 1:18pm, 23 Jun 2018Updated: 3:41pm, 29 Jun 2018

If you needed reaffirmation that the World Cup brings people together from all over globe, then here is a tale to warm your heart.

Earlier this month, the South China Morning Post (painstakingly) recorded a video of myself putting all my 670 Panini stickers – or so I thought – into my World Cup album one by one.

I had been collecting them for a month and had spent nearly HK$1,850 (US$235.74) doing so, before getting the final 85 stickers I needed at a swap meeting in Kowloon Tong with a local Facebook group.

Except there was a hitch – I was missing one sticker, namely Medhi Benatia of Morocco.

That No 143 had been haunting me in my dreams – until I walked into work on Saturday morning and found a letter in the Sport desk inbox tray addressed to me from the Pacific Palisades in California.

I’m not one to receive fan mail too often, so presumed it was a letter from an angry reader who wished to point out how stupid I was for predicting Spain would win the World Cup.

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