Merlin's Official England

Official England is the Merlin's collection dedicated the the World Cup 1998 and in particular to the English team. This is actually the second album that Merlin dedicates to the World Cup, after "The World Cup Sticker Collection - Italia 90". More will follow, with Official England 2002, 2006, and then England 2010 and 2014 by Topps. 

The album, which has also a hardcover binder, begins with the contents and the Introduction. Then it continues with Team England, a double page with 8 stickers about the team: here we have the shining badge and the shining 1st kit stickers. The album continues with the road to the world cup of the English team: each match played by England is displaced over two pages with 9 stickers.

The England squad is showed: 31 stickers over 5 pages with the team photo, the coach, goalkeepers, defenders, and forwards.

The second part of the album includes all the teams participating to the World Cup 98, divided by groups. The main teams have one page with 7 stickers: shining flag and 12 players (2 players per sticker). The finalist Brazil shows great players like Aldair, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Dunga, Romario, and Ronaldo. Italy has among the others Cannavaro, Maldini, Del Piero and Vieri. Other stickers of great players included are Zidane, Djorkaeff, Deschamps (France), Raul (Spain), Bergkamp (Holland), Klinsmann (Germany), Boban (Croatia), Mihajlovic (Serbia), Batistuta, Crespo, Javier Zanetti, Simeone, Ariel Ortega (Argentina).

English trio of 1998: Alan Shearer, Paul Gascoigne, David Beckham

In the following, the stickers of some football stars included in this album:

Album details

Full Name: Merlin's Official England

Publisher: Merlin

Competition: World Cup 2010

Total number of stickers: 308

Topps Total Football 2009

This official sticker collection of the English Premier League 2008/2009 is the first released with the name Topps, after 15 albums of Merlin (from 1994 to 2008), even if they were actually the same company. In the season 2008/2009 Manchester United became champion in front of Liverpool and Chelsea. Nicolas Anelka (Chelsea) was the best scorer with 19 goals, just better than Cristiano Ronaldo (18 goals) and Steven Gerrard (16 goals).
This album opens with the contents on the left, the foreword of Scudamore and the first two stickers on the right (shiny Premier League logo and trophy). Then, the 20 teams are showed in alphabetical order. For each team there are 21 stickers displayed over 4 pages: the club badge (shiny), the team photo (big size sticker), the star player (big size silver sticker), and 18 players.

In the center of the album there are three special section: the Kits, the Quiz, and Milestones. The Kits is a collection of 20 big size sticker with the kits of each team (home and away shirt on each sticker). "Topps Total Football Quiz" includes 20 stickers (one per team) of players in action; each player on these stickers is the answer of a corresponding question of the quiz. "Milestones" is a collection of 18 stickers of players in action with a corresponding record.

Young trio at Arsenal: Cesc Fabregas (21 years old), Samir Nasri (21) and Ramsey (18)

Manchester United fantastic trio: Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlitos Tevez and Wayne Rooney

 Young prospects at Tottenham: Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Giovani Dos Santos

Album details
Full Name: Topps Total Football
Publisher: Topps
League: English Premier League
Season: 2008/2009
Number of teams: 20
Stickers per team: 21
Special sections: -The Kits (20 stickers)
                            -Topps Total Football Quiz (20 stickers)
                            -Milestones (18 stickers)

Total number of stickers: 480