An interesting element of Brazilian soccer culture that not many gringos know about is figurinha collecting. Akin to American baseball cards, figurinhas, or stickers, feature soccer players, and are wildly popular during the World Cup.  The stickers resemble cards and feature soccer players from Brazil and around the world, and stickers are issued for both the World Cup and big Brazilian soccer championships. Collectors buy packs of stickers and  then place the stickers in an album. The goal is to be able to fill the album with all of the current players from all of the World Cup teams, which means buying new packs of stickers or trading with others.

While collecting figurinhas is most popular amongst children, it is also a hobby of adults who vie for completed albums. They’re a hot commodity online and even in the workplace, and recently, robbers stole over 100,000 figurinhas from a factory in São Paulo. Learn more about the craze from this Brazilian news report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAs1PdGSvFg

To read more about the figurinha craze in English, check out this article from Global Post. For those of you not currently in Brazil, you can still get in on the figurinha action with online figurinhas!

For our Brazilian readers, did you ever collect figurinhas as a kid? Do you still collect them now?