sabato 27 giugno 2015

Merlin's Premier League 2015


The official sticker collection of the 2015 English Premier League changes the name back to Merlin like in the period 1994-2007, taking over the name Topps. This change of name is also related to an improve of quality, as the Topps collections of the latest years were quite disappointing. This album has a thick cover and again a large number of stickers (544).
The album opens as usual with the table of contents on the left page and the foreword on the right page. Here we have four introductory stickers, all shining: the trophy (double sticker) and the logo (double sticker). Premier League teams are showed as usual in alphabetical order, but this time there are four pages for each team, with a total of 24 stickers, 6 stickers per page. On the first page there is the club logo (shining sticker), the kits (home and away), the team photo (two stickers), and the team in action (two stickers). The other three pages include 6 player stickers each: two of these stickers are shining, the star player and the captain in action. The album is filled with details about the team and the players, as it was for all Merlin's editions. We have again the career next to each player sticker. What is missing compared to the latest Topps editions is a sticker of the coach. 










In the center of the album, after half of the teams are showed, there are three special sections that include action stickers of one player per team. "Celebrate in style" includes 20 stickers of goal celebrations, "Show your pride and passion" 20 stickers of key players, and "Lead your team to victory" 20 stickers of leader players. See the pictures below for details about these sections.








The top players of each team have a special silver shining sticker: 

Alexis Sanchez 16 goals this season, Diego Costa 20 goals, and Aguero 26 goals

Chelsea won the title of the Premier League 2014/15 with 87 points. Manchester City got the second place (79 points) and Arsenal the third (75 points). The three relegated teams are Hull City, Burnley and QPR. In the album Merlin's Premier League 2015 they will be thus replaced by Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich City that were promoted from the Championship competition. Top scorer of the season is Sergio Aguero (Manchester City) with 26 goals.

     Graziano Pellé has two stickers in this album. He made a great debut in Premier League with 12 goals and probably the best goal of the season against QPR


There are 11 young prospects (under 21) included in this album. Some of them are already well known, like Raheem Sterling (Liverpool) or Adnan Januzaj (Manchester United), others were new transfers, like Lazar Markovic (Liverpool) from Benfica and Eric Dier (Tottenham) from Sporting Lisbon. Here below the complete list.

Young talents: Raheem Sterling (35 appearances, 7 goals) and Nabil Bentaleb (26 appearances) 

Young talents: Calum Chambers (23 appearances, 1 goal) and Adnan Januzaj (18 appearances)

Young prospects included (1994 or younger):
Calum Chambers (1995, Arsenal), John Stones (94, Everton), Andrew Robertson (94, Hull City), Raheem Sterling and Lazar Markovic (both 1994, Liverpool), Luke Shaw and Adnan Januzaj (both 1995, Manchester United), Rolando Aarons (1995, Newcastle), James Ward-Prowse (94, Southampton), Eric Dier and Nabil Bentaleb (both 1994, Tottenham) 

Album details
Full name: Premier League 2015 - Official Sticker Collection
Publisher: Merlin
League: English Premier League
Season: 2014/2015
Number of teams: 20
Stickers per team: 24
Special sections: Introduction (4 stickers)
                            Celebrate in style (20 stickers)
                            Show your pride and passion (20 stickers)
                            Lead your team to victory (20 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 544





domenica 14 giugno 2015

Panini Scottish Premier League 2011


The official sticker collection of the Scottish Premier League (SPL) for the season 2010/2011 was released by Panini. Even though there are only 12 teams in the SPL, the collection includes a large amount of stickers as all the players have a portrait and an action sticker.
The album opens with the contents on the left page and the welcome introduction on the right. Here we find the first two stickers: the SPL trophy and the Panini logo celebrating 50 years.
The album continues showing the SPL teams in alphabetical order. Each team is displayed over four pages with a total of 31 stickers: the club badge, the stadium, the team kit, the team photo (2 stickers), the team in action (2 stickers), and 16 players (one sticker in action and half sticker portrait).







Celtic and Rangers have both a special section of two pages with the main players of the team in action. These sections are called "Hoops star players" and "Gers star players", respectively. Each section is composed by 14 stickers of 7 players in action.

  


In the center of the album we find a section dedicated to the Club Captains. These two pages include 12 special stickers of the 12 captains of the SPL, with facts and descriptions of the players.



A detail of club badge and stadium sticker of Kilmarnock




The album ends with a page celebrating the Clydesdale Bank Premier League (SPL) 2011 including a six stickers photo of all the captains with the trophy of the competition.


The album includes also a big poster with 24 stickers of  Internationals players of the Scottish Premier League 2011. These stickers can be found like the other stickers in the common packets of the collections.


Album details
Full name: Scottish Premier League 2011
Publisher: Panini
League: Scottish 
Season: 2010/2011
Number of teams: 12
Stickers per team: 31
Special sections: Introduction (2 stickers)
                            Hoops Star Players (14 stickers)
                            Gers Star Players (14 stickers)
                            Club Captains (12 stickers)
                            Celebrating the SPL (6 stickers)
Extra stickers: Poster "Internationals" with 24 stickers

Total number of stickers: 444