martedì 25 novembre 2014

Panini Futebol 2014/2015



Panini Futebol 2014-15 is the official sticker collection of the Portuguese Primeira Liga. This season the Portuguese league has been expanded, from 16 to 18 participating teams. The album includes all the teams and two special sections, the new acquisitions ("Top acquisiçoes") and the best Portuguese players engaged for the qualification to the next European Championship ("França 2016"). The total collection is thus composed by 406 stickers, out of which 63 are special shining stickers (club badges and action stickers of "França 2016"). The cover of the album is similar to the last editions, but the sticker graphics has been renewed. The album opens with the season calendar on the left and the table of contents on the right, where we find also the sticker number 1 of this album, the championship trophy. Then, there is a spectacular double page with the stickers of all club badges. These are high quality shining stickers printed in relief. 



Each team has a total of 19 stickers: the team photo, the coach and 17 players. In the double pages there are team details and the last five years results in the Portuguese league.









After the 18 teams are showed, we find a double page with the top transfers of the season. Among these 18 stickers we find new Porto players Adrian, Casemiro, Brahimi, Martins Indi, Oliver, and Tello; new Benfica players Julio Cesar, Bebé, Derley, and Talisca; new Sporting Lisbon players Nani, Oriol Rosell, and Sarr.



Last section of the album concerns the best Portuguese players that could be selected by the National Team for the European Championship of France 2016. These 27 shining stickers in relief include the international players Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe, Coentrao, Moutinho, and the rookie Ruben Neves (Porto).




The Portuguese league offers every season new talents. We have seen in this season some great new prospects. In particular Talisca (20 years old, new Brasilian signing of Benfica) who scored 8 goals in the first 10 matches and the 17 years old Ruben Neves of Porto (born on 13 March 1997), a midfielder who scored at his debut in the first game of the season. The album Panini Futebol 2015 includes thus the rookie sticker of Ruben Neves, the new talent of Portuguese football; however, Talisca has already appeared on sticker albums, on the Panini Campeonato Brasilero 2013 and early this year in the Panini Copa do Nordeste 2014, when he was playing for Bahia. You can read more in this post where I was able to identify him as the best young prospect of the album:




Old players become coaches: Sergio Conceiçao (ex Inter, Lazio) and Petit (ex Benfica)


Album details
Full name: Futebol 2014-15
Publisher: Panini
League: Portuguese "Primera Liga"
Season: 2014/2015
Number of teams: 18
Stickers per team: 19
Special sections: - Primera Liga Trophy (1 sticker)
                            - Primera Liga Club badges (18 stickers)
                            - "Top acquisiçoes" (18 stickers)
                            - "França 2016" (27 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 406

Young Prospects included (1993 or younger)
Academica: Ofori (1993), Magique (1993)
Arouca: Igor Rocha (93), Dabo (93), Colitto (94)
Belenenses: Tiago Silva (93), Sturgeon (94)
Benfica: Talisca (94)
Boavista: Sampaio (94)
Braga: Rafa (93)
Estoril: Toze (93), Fernandinho (93), Ricardo Vaz (94)
Gil Vicente*: Peck's (93)
Maritimo: José Sà (93), Kukula (93)
Nacional: Rui Silva (94), Rodrigues (93), Ayala (95), Gomaa (93), Willyan (94), Lucas Joao (93)
P.Ferreira: Barnes (95)
Porto: Ruben Neves (97), Oliver (94)
Rio Ave: Ederson (93), Prince (93), Hassan (93), Lopes (94)
Sporting: Sarr (94), Rabia (93), Joao Mario (93), Mané (94)
V.Guimaraes: Luis Rocha (93), Bernard (94), Cafù (93), Gui (93)
V. Setubal: Raeder (93), Venancio (93), Kiko (93), Yann (95), Schmidt (93), Pedro (93), Ponce (94).

*There is a mistake on the album, where Gladstone is set as born on 1995 when actually he is from 1985


domenica 16 novembre 2014

Panini Voetbal 78


We present here the first Panini Voetbal edition about the Dutch Premier League. This album was realesed in the season 1977-78 and was followed by many others until the season 2004-05 (with some interruptions). The album opens with the table of contents on the left and the season calendar on the right. Then, the 18 teams of the Dutch league are showed in alphabetical order, each diaplayed over two pages. These are the teams included: Ajax, FC Amsterdam, AZ, Den Haag, Feyenoord, Go Ahead Eagles, Haarlem, NAC, NEC, PSV, Roda, Sparta, Telstar, Twente, Utrecht, Vitesse, Volendam, VVV. 


The Eredivisie season 1977-78 was won by PSV (53 points) in front of Ajax (49 points) and AZ (45 points).
In this album, each team has 18 stickers, with the club badge, the team photo and 16 players. Details and career of each player are also included.











After Eredivisie teams, there is a special section with football trophies and cups from Dutch and International competitions. These double page includes 8 stickers: World Cup, World Cup for Clubs, European Cup for National Teams, European Cup for Clubs (Champions League), European Cup for Cup Winners, UEFA Cup, Mitropa Cup, KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup).


The album continues with a section dedicated to the best Dutch players playing abroad (Nederlandse Toppers Over de Grenzen). There are 26 stickers of Dutch players displayed over 3 pages; most of these players played in Belgium, except for Johnny Rep (Bastia, France) and Gerry Muhren (Betis, Spain); Curiously, Johan Cruijff, who played for Barcelona at that time, is not included.


Then the album proposes three pages with 22 cartoon stickers about the game of football seen by Prosdocimi (Het voetbalspel gezien door Prosdocimi).



Last section of the album is three pages about national teams with 38 national badges (19 stickers) plus one sticker with the badge of the Dutch Football Association.



In this album we find three important trainers. Vujadin Boskov, coach of Feyenoord at that time and later trainer of Real Madrid and other relevant teams in Italy, Guus Hiddink, player of NEC in 1978 and now coach of Holland, and Dick Advocaat, playing for VVV and nowadays coach of Serbia.



Album details:
Full name: Voetbal 78
Publisher: Panini
League: Dutch Eredivisie
Season: 1977-78
Number of teams: 18
Stickers per team: 18
Special sections: - Trophies (8 stickers)
                            - Dutch players abroad (26 stickers)
                     - Het voetbalspel gezien door Prosdocimi (22 stickers)
                     - National teams badges (20 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 400

domenica 9 novembre 2014

Panini Pro League 2015




We present here the album of the Belgian Pro League recently released by Panini (edition number 43, since the season 1972/73). This year it changed the name from Panini Football to Panini Pro League and the graphics of stickers and album have been renovated. As since last year, it includes only the Belgian Pro League and not anymore the lower divisions as used in the past.
The album includes 350 stickers of the 16 teams of Belgian Pro League. For each team there are 20 stickers: club badge (shining sticker), star player (action shining sticker), team photo (double sticker), coach and 15 players. On the background of each team double page there is a photo of the club stadium.












At the end of the album there are two special sections. The first one is a quiz about the Belgian league with 18 stickers of players or ex-players associated to 18 facts. These stickers are: Biglia, Weber, Zetterberg, Happel, Anthuenis, Bryan Ruiz, Vanhaezebrouck, Ceulemans, Boubacar Copa, Den Boer, Lestienne, Jordan Lukaku, Jelle van Damme, Sonck, Sherjll Macdonald, Thorgan Hazard, Van Binst, Preud'homme.
The second section (Weetjes/Nouveautés) is another quiz about records of the current Pro League players. We find here these 12 players: Timmy Simons (oldest players), Tielemans (youngest player), Engels (tallest player), Werner (heaviest player), Ibrahima Conte (lightest player), Dury (oldest coach), Vanderbiest (youngest coach), Carl Hoefkens (highest number of matches in Belgian league) Oliver Deschacht (highest number of matches for his club), Vandenbergh (highest number of goals in Belgian Pro League), Peter Meas (coach for longest time at his current club), Timmy Simons (Pro Legue player with highest number of selections with the Belgian national team).





As usual the Belgian League is a perfect place for young prospects, as they have space in the main team since young age. In the recent past we found in the Panini album players like Lukaku, Defour, Witsel, Dante etc... The main young talent of this album is Youri Tielemans (born on 7/5/1997), 17 years old, already a regular player of Anderlecht since last season. He deserved the shining star player sticker of Anderlecht in this Panini album. Anderlecht includes also Mbemba, Praet and the scorer Mitrovic. Club Brugge shows the defenders Engels and Mechele, and the Chilean forward Nicolas Castillo. Standard lost the two best prospects at the end of last season (Batshuayi and Ezekiel), but includes this year the rookies Mbombo (now on loan to Auxerre), De Sart and Tony Watt.


Anderlecht young prospects: the "star" Tielemans (1997), Mitrovic (1994) and Praet (1994)



Club Brugge prospects: Bjorn Engels (1994), Mechele (1993) and Nicolas Castillo (1993)


Rising stars of Standard: De Sart (1994), Mbombo (1994), Tony Watt (1993)

Update
In spring 2015 Panini released an update set of the album with 40 new stickers to replace the same number of players that were transferred to other teams.

This is the list of the stickers in the update set:
Marin, Defour, Conte (Anderlecht), Haroun, M. Martens (Cercle Brugge), Gedoz, Izquierdo, Vormer, Claudemir, Denswil (Club Brugge), Penneteau, Geraerts (Charleroi), Okriashvili (Genk), Nielsen (Gent), Van Eenoo (Kortrijk), Guillou (Lierse), Leye (Lokeren), Biebauw, Verdier, Naessens, Van Damme (Mechelen), Da Cruz, Langil, Contout (Mouscron-Peruwelz), Musona (Oostende), Riga, Scholz, Faty, Louis (Standard), Brepoels, Wilmet, Destorme (Waasland-Beveren), Veldhoven, Dorda, Diagne (Westerlo), Jorgensen, Messoudi, Kaya, Cordaro (Zulte)

      Defour and Vormer are in the update set

It is possible to glue only the top part of the new sticker to preserve the original underneath



Album details:
Full name: Pro League 2015
Publisher: Panini
League: Belgian Pro League
Season: 2014/2015
Number of teams: 16
Stickers per team: 20
Special sections:   - Quiz (18 stickers)
                             - Weetjes/Nouveautés (12 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 350

Young prospects included (1993 or younger)
Anderlecht: Youri Tielemans (1997), Heylen (1994), Mbemba (1994), Andy Najar (1993), Dennis Praet (1994), Mitrovic (1994), Acheampong (1993).
Cercle Brugge: Pierre Bourdin (1994)
Club Brugge: Engels (1994), Mechele (1993), Castillo (1993)
Charleroi: Houdret (1993), Habib Daf (1994)
Genk: Pieter Gerkens (1995), Siebe Schrijvers (1996)
Gent: Thomas Foket (1994), Zolotic (1993), Van der Bruggen (1993), Benito Raman (1994)
Kortrijk: Robert Klaassen (1993), Gregory Mahau (1994)
Lierse: El Messaoudi (1995), Bensebaini (1995), Wanderson (1994), Dolly Menga (1993)
Lokeren: Eugene Ansah (1994)
Mechelen: Ibrahima Cissé (1994), Mats Rits (1993), Adesanya (1993)
Mouscron-Peruwelz: Verstraete (1994), Zinho Gano (1993)
KV Oostende: John Ruiz (1994), Jordan Lukaku (1994)
Standard: Arslanagic (1993), De Sart (1994), Tony Watt (1993), Yannis Mbombo (1994)
Wasland-Beveren: Alec Luyckx (1995)
Zulte Waregem: Tiago Ferreira (1993), Chucks Aneke (1993), Theo Bongonda (1995)