“I’LL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING FOR NICK BARMBY…”
Fingers tremble with hope as FourFourTwo rips open an original pack of Panini Euro 96 stickers. An unlikely dream result from our 21st-century purchase would be a national team shiny, Scotland hotshot Ally McCoist, England hotshot Alan Shearer (with bonus hair), Zinedine Zidane (also with bonus hair) and at least one Euro 96 cult figure: Bulgaria goalkeeper Borislav Mihailov (with suspiciously bonus hair) or Czech wizard Karel Poborsky (his luscious locks all natural).
The first sticker staring right back at us reads ‘Birmingham’.
It’s a host city sticker and, with all due respect to the Venice of the North, not quite the opener we wanted. This is followed by Steffen Freund, Emil Kostadinov, the Dutch national team – blissfully unaware of the 4-1 hammering that’s to come – and Oceano, the Portugal midfielder, although we’re fairly sure he doubles as a FIFA continental territory. Who’s next? Turkish defender Concacaf?
Then, last but the opposite of least, we find him: a perfectly preserved Patrik Berger. Handsome and superbly mulleted, the Czech Republic and later Liverpool hero is freed from his packaging after 24 years spent lying in wait. We punch the air as if we, too, had scored a penalty against the Germans in
