sabato 26 aprile 2014

Panini Foot 2013/2014 (France)


Panini published another great and rich album for the 2013-14 season of the French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. The style of the stickers is similar to the album Panini Calciatori 2012-13 (Italian League). Also the cover is similar, with a player for each team placed on a map of France in correspondace of the location of his team. 
Ligue 1 teams are displayed over four pages and include 24 stickers: the club badge (shining sticker), the squad (double sticker), the coach, and 19 players (normal stickers). The star player of the team has a double shining sticker (one in action and one portrait).
Ligue 2 teams have only two stickers each, like the previous season: the shining club badge and the squad.
There are no other sections or special stickers in this edition, but there is the usual album update ("Set Transferts") with the new players that were acquired during the winter market.





The eccentric Djibril Cissé is back to Ligue 1 and he is included in the Transfer Set.

 








Monaco is back to Ligue 1 and did a great season (second place). Here we find the big purchase of the summer, Falcao (double shining stickers) and other big names (James Rodriguez, Moutinho, Rivière, Carvalho, Kondogbia).





First sticker for the rookie Neal Maupay
He debuted last season and scored already 5 goals in Ligue 1


Paris Saint-Germain includes the big stars (Cavani, Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Lavezzi, etc...) and also two very young prospects, Rabiot and Ongenda, both from 1995. Cabaye is the new signing of the winter market and he is included in the update.



Zlatan Ibrahimovic is again the best scorer and best player of the season

 



 All the shining badges of the 20 clubs of Ligue 2


The "Set Transferts" with the updates is available since mid March. In this set we find 30 players and 3 new coaches. There are also mini stickers ("joueur transféré" and "nouveau coach") to place next to the players/coaches transfered away. In order to know which players moved during the winter market, you can check this table:

The 33 update stickers are:
Bracconi (coach, Ajaccio), Yatabaré and Cissé (Bastia), Hoarau (Bordeaux), Abdallah and De Melo (Evian), Dembélé (Guingamp), Anigo (coach) and Dja Djedje (Olympique Marseille), Abdennour, Elderson and Berbatov (Monaco), Courbis (coach), Saint-Ruf and Niang (Montpellier), Gomis, Oudrhiri and Shechter (Nantes), Cabaye (PSG), Grosicki, Ntep and Toivonen (Rennes), Trémolinas and Guilavogui (Saint-Etienne), Marange, Sunzu, Sinkala and Jordan Ayew (Sochaux), Boucher, Veskovac and Furman (Toulouse), Medjani and Varis (Valenciennes)

a sealed packet of Panini Foot 2013-14

a box of 100 packets

Album details
Full Name: Foot 2013-14 - La collection officielle de stickers
Publisher: Panini
League: Ligue 1 and Ligue 2
Number of teams: 20 of Ligue 1 
                              20 of Ligue 2
Stickers per teams: 24 + updates for Ligue 1 
                                 2 for Ligue 2 
Special sections/stickers: No
Updates: 33 stickers ("Set Transferts")

Total number of stickers: 555 = 520 (base set) + 33 (updates)

Young prospect (1993 or younger) included:
Adama Ba (1993, Bastia), Biyogo Pogo (1993, Bordeaux), Diego Rolan (1993, Bordeaux), Youssouf Sabaly (1993, Evian), Soualiho Meité (1994, Lille), Divock Origi (1995, Lille), Raphael Guerreiro (Lorient), Samuel Umtiti (1993, Lyon), Yassine Benzia (1994, Lyon), Benjamin Mendy (1994, Olympique Marseille), Mario Lemina (1993, Olympique Marseille), Florian Thauvin (1993, Olympique Marseille), Fabinho (1993, Monaco), Yannick Ferreira Carrasco (1993, Monaco), Geoffrey Kondogbia (1993, Monaco), Lucas Ocampos (1994, Monaco), Mbaye Niang (1994, Montpellier), Jordan Veretout (1993, Nantes), Alexy Bosetti (1993, Nice), Neal Maupay (1996, Nice), Lucas Digne (1993, PSG), Marquinhos (1994, PSG), Ongenda (1995, PSG), Adrien Rabiot (1995, PSG), Steven Moreira (1994, Rennes), Adrien Hunou (1994, Rennes), Wesley Said (1995, Rennes), Kurt Zouma (1994, Saint-Etienne), Jérome Roussillon  (1993, Sochaux), Uros Spajic (1993, Toulouse), Issiaga Sylla (1994, Toulouse), Jean-Christophe Bahebeck (1993, Valenciennes), Opa Nguette (1994, Valenciennes)

venerdì 18 aprile 2014

Topps Bundesliga 2014



This year sticker album of Bundesliga was published by Topps and distributed by Penny Market. The style of the album is very similar to the previous year, but the total number of stickers has been reduced to 280; however the cover of the album is thicker and thus of a better quality. Bayern Munchen has been again by far the best team of the League and includes all the big stars (Robben, Ribery, Mandzukic etc...), but with only 12 players per team some good talents and young prospects have been excluded, like for example Max Meyer (1995, Schalke), who played most of the matches and will have to wait next season to get his first sticker.
The album opens with the table of contents and the first two stickers: a shining Bundesliga logo and the official ball of the competition. Then, the 18 teams are showed in alphabetical order. For each team there are 15 stickers: the club badge (silver sticker), the squad (double sticker) and 12 players.










Even though there are only 12 players per team, we can find some rookie stickers of talents that raised this year. In particular we can mention:
-Hakan Calhanoglu (1994, Hamburg): a Turkish offensive midifielder that scored so far 10 goals at his first year in Bundesliga; he is now on the radar of Chelsea for next season.
-Timo Werner (1996, Stuttgart): a very young German forward, who played regularly and scored so far 4 goals.
-Maximilian Arnold (1994, Wolfsburg): 7 goals in 23 matches so far; he is doing a great season.




The last part of the album is dedicated to the 50 years of Bundesliga, with statistics, history and all the winners. In this section we find 8 stickers: the Bundesliga meister (a puzzle of 8 stickers) and 4 players that made the history of the competition. These players are Gerd Muller (best scorer with 365 goals), Karl-Heinz Korbel (most appearances, 602), Mehmet Scholl (8 titles won like Oliver Kahn) and Nuri Sahin (the youngest debutant, 16 years and 335 days old).





Album details
Full name: Fussball Bundesliga 2013/2014
Publisher: Topps
League: German Bundesliga
Number of teams: 18
Stickers per team: 15
Special sections: - 2 stickers of Introduction (logo and ball)
                           - 8 stickers "50 years of Bundesliga"

Total number of stickers: 280

Young prospects included (1993 or younger):
Holzhauser (1993, Augsburg), Brooks (1993, Hertha Berlin), Ginter (1994, Freiburg), Jullien (1993, Freiburg), Calhanoglu (1994, Hamburg), Bittencourt (1993, Hannover), Parker (1993, Mainz), Draxler (1993, Schalke), Rudiger (1993, Stuttgart), Timo Werner (1996, Stuttgart), Arnold (1994, Wolfsburg)

lunedì 14 aprile 2014

Topps Premier 2014 Gold Stickers

Playing the online game (Topps Pro 11) of the Topps Premier League 2014 collection, it is possible to win each week a Gold Sticker of a chosen Premier League player. 
I managed to win some of these limited and rare stickers. They are actually cards with the name of the player on the back. 

Check it out!



sabato 12 aprile 2014

Topps Scottish Professional Football League 2014


Topps SPFL 2014 is the official collection of the Scottish football. For the first time, all the 42 teams of all the four professional Scottish leagues (Premiership, Championship, League One, League Two) are included in a sticker album.
Opening the album, we find the table of contents on the left and the foreword of Neil Doncaster on the right together with four shining stickers of the Scottish leagues. Teams are divided by league and they appear in alphabetical order.


Premiership
Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Hearts, Hibernian, Inverness CT, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Ross County, St Johnstone, St Mirren
Premiership teams have two pages each and a total of 16 stickers: 1 club badge (shining sticker), 1 star player in action (shining sticker), the squad (two stickers), and 12 players.
Celtic, which won this season, includes some international players like Samaras (Greece), Izaguirre (Honduras) and Van Dijk (Holland).









Championship
Alloa Athletic, Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, Dundee, Falkirk, Hamilton Academical, Livingston, Greenock Morton, Queen of the South, Raith Rovers
Each team is displayed over one page with 8 stickers: 1 shining club badge, 1 star player and 6 player stickers (two players per stickers for a total of 12 players). Stickers with double players do not contain two consecutive players as usual, but two players of different teams.



League One
Airdrieonians, Arbroath, Ayr United, Brechin City, Dunfermline Athletic, East Fife, Forfar Athletic, Rangers, Stenhousemuir, Stranraer
League one teams have the same configuration of Championship teams except for the club badge that is not shining, but it has a white background. In League One we find the legendary Glasgow Rangers, who won this season and next year will take part in the Championship, trying to get back to Premiership as soon as possible.




League Two
Albion Rovers, Annan Athletic, Berwick Rangers, Clyde, East Stirling, Elgin City, Montrose, Peterhead, Queens Park, Stirling Albion
All League Two teams are included in two pages. For each team there is a club badge (half sticker) and a star player (half sticker). Here also, badge and star player are not on the same sticker, but they are coupled with other players of Championship or League One. 


Last section of the album includes four stickers with the trophies of the corresponding leagues. Premiership and Championship trophies are shining stickers, whereas League One and League Two trophies are normal stickers.


A sealed packet of Topps SPFL 2014

The greatest thing of this collection is that it includes the badges of all the 42 professional clubs. Unfortunately, League Two badges are only half sticker. In the picture below we show the complete collection of club badge of Premiership, Championship and League One.

The complete club badge collection of Premiership, Championship and League One

Album details
Full name: Scottish Professional Football League 2014
Publisher: Topps
League: Scottish Premiership, Championship, League One and Two
Number of teams: 42
Stickers per team: 16 Premiership
                                8 Championship
                                8 League One
                                1 League Two
Special sections: -League logos (4 stickers)
                           -League trophies (4 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 370* 
*: counting double stickers with double numbers, the collection has a total of 490 stickers.
The complete checklist is available at Football Cartophilic Info Exchange
http://cartophilic-info-exch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/topps-2014-scottish-professional.html

Young Prospects
This album includes 22 young players (1994 or younger) to focus on for the near future:
Ryan Gauld (1995, Dundee United), Andy Robertson (1994, Dundee United), Callum Paterson (1994, Hearts), Danny Handling (1994, Hibernian), Liam Polworth (1994, Inverness), Lewis Milne (1994, Cowdenbeath), Craig Wighton (1997, Dundee), Kyle Turnbull (1995, Falkirk), Stephen Kingsley (1994, Falkirk), Jay Fulton (1994, Falkirk), Conor McGrandles (1995, Falkirk), Craig Sibbald (1995, Falkirk), Philip Roberts (1994, Falkirk), Stephen Hendrie (1995, Hamilton Academical), Connor McDonald (1994, Livingston), Danny Mullen (1995, Livingston), Chris O'Neill (1995, Airdrieonians), Robbie Crawford (1994, Ayr United), Ross Millen (1994, Dunfermline), Jordan Moore (1994, Dunfermline), Lewis McLeod (1994, Rangers), Scott Rumsby (1994, Stranraer)