The World Cup is about much more than what takes place on the field. For many Belgraders, the daily exchange of football stickers is just as exciting.

Downtown Belgrade is probably the only place in the world where North Korean soccer player Jong Tae-Se is worth more than Argentine player Lionel Messi. As hundreds of people of all ages gather at the centre of Belgrade to trade stickers for their South Africa 2010 World Cup albums, a player's value is not always proportional to his fame.

The rarest stickers are worth the most. A trader can get half of the Argentine team, one of the World Cup favorites, in exchange for Jong Tae-Se. A packet of five stickers costs about 40 euro cents in Serbia.

The album has room for 600 stickers, so filling it is not an easy task. That is why hundreds of Belgrade citizens head toward the city center every day in hopes of finding the "big exchange".

Trading is organised in downtown Belgrade, beside the Terazije Fountain, on workdays and weekends. People start gathering around noon and the place is crowded for as long as there is daylight.

Enthusiasts of all ages come to the swap -- the youngest are driven in baby carts by their parents, the oldest ones have already passed 70. The one thing they all have in common is the love of football.

Pensioners Milan and Dragan can be found at the exchange nearly every day. Milan says he is there on behalf of his grandson.

"My grandson is either at school or has to study, so I come here instead of him to swap stickers. We are very close to filling the album, we're about 20 stickers short. He will be glad one day to have the pictures of all the soccer players who played in South Africa. I'm just sorry we didn't have anything like this when we were kids," Milan says, laughing.

"What grandson?" jokes Dragan. "We're just afraid to admit that we're collecting stickers for ourselves at this age."

Many parents with children also show up for the swap. Rade brought his six-year-old son. "As you can see, his role in this is crucial," says Rade, using his son Dejan's head as an impromptu table for updating his list of sticker numbers. He carefully crosses out the ones he has already obtained in the exchange, and counts how many are still needed to fill up the album.

"I used to collect stickers too when I was a kid, only my dad didn't help me this way," he adds.

Dejan says the most important thing for him is to find the stickers for all Serbian players. He expects them to achieve success in South Africa, but has a backup plan just in case. "If Serbia fails to qualify for the next round, I will cheer for Argentina because of Messi," Dejan says.

Mladen is sitting at the fountain steps, trying hurriedly to reach someone on the phone. Quick contact with the base is essential during trading.

"Hello, did you open the bags I bought this morning? Did we, by any chance, get [Serbian player] Rukavina? They're offering me Rukavina here, but for four other stickers, I don't know what to do … Okay, okay, I'll take it."

Mladen says that at the beginning of the swap, each player's picture was exchanged for one, but now the ratio has changed, because the Cup has started and everyone wants to fill their album as soon as possible.

"I too can't wait to collect all the stickers, so I can watch soccer in peace. I say that this is the last album I'm filling every time, but in four years I can't resist it all over again," he adds.

Who says only men are interested in football? The fairer sex is also involved in sticker exchange. Of course, they stand in for their children or brothers who had to go on a trip … and some of the players are really handsome.

"Well yeah, it's good for us to have some benefit from soccer too," says Dragica, adding that she has already swapped telephone numbers with some of the guys so that they can keep exchanging stickers, and maybe even watch a game or two together. "No, I'm really into football and I know more about it than some men … I guess that's because I grew up with three brothers," she says.

"Just five stickers more, just five stickers more!" Nikola says, having found the Ghana player he was missing. He claims he has albums dating back to the 1974 World Cup in Germany. He says he is now being offered several thousand euros for those rare copies.

"I am not willing to sell. Far bigger than the money is the enjoyment of looking through old, now almost yellow pictures of the players who competed in Germany over 36 years ago," Nikola says.

Robert says filling an album is much easier now than it used to be, because of the swaps.

"When I was little, there was practically no way to fill an album. I could only swap with friends from the neighborhood or school, and that is a limited number of people," he explains. "Now people, not only from Belgrade but from other Serbian towns as well, are coming here. That means we get to fill the album faster. I need three more stickers, and then I can focus on beer, peanuts and football."

Bojan is having a hard time answering the question of what is a bigger passion for him --watching the games or filling the album.

"I will be a little sad when all this is over and my album is filled. Then I have to wait four more years until a new album and the next World Cup," he says.

He admits there are easier ways to collect all the stickers, but he still comes to the downtown swap every day. "You know, I can even order the missing stickers from the internet. But that's not as interesting as hanging out here every day, swapping, meeting people … it's a totally good trip, man," Bojan says.

*This text and photographs are courtesy of the Southeast European Times (SET), a web site sponsored by the US Department of Defense in support of UN Resolution 1244, designed to provide an international audience with a portal to a broad range of information about Southeastern Europe. It highlights movement toward greater regional stability and steps governments take toward integration into European institutions. SET also focuses on developments that hinder both terrorist activity and support for terrorism in the region.

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