Topps Champions League 2016 (Hardcover album)

The season 2015/2016 marks a big change in the sticker industry due to the Champions League rights acquisition for three season by Topps. The rival of Panini could in this way publish one of the most expected collections of the season, while Panini launched the new FIFA 365 collection around the world to conquer the market. Topps released a sticker album of the Champions league that was not at the level of the previous Panini albums, but that includes for the first time (at least in Germany and UK) an hardcover version of the album.

The collection starts with the contents and the first four (shining) stickers: The Champions League logo (2 stickers) and trophy (two stickers). Then we go immediately deep into the teams divided by groups. Each group section starts with two pages introducing the four teams. Here each team has three stickers: the home kit, the away kit, and the star player (shining sticker for the best two teams of each group). Then each team is displaced over two pages with a total of 15 stickers: the club logo (shining sticker), 12 player portraits (one out of which is shining), and 4 half sticker players. There is an exception for the Italian teams (and this is the first mistery of this album), which do not have the four small size players, but instead three normal size players.

Group A: PSG, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Malmoe

 The Champions League winner Real Madrid

Group B: PSV, Manchester Utd, CSKA Moskva, Wolfsburg

Group C: Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray, Astana

Atletico Madrid reached the final of the Champions League

Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Sevilla, Borussia M.

Group E: Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, Bate Borisov

Group F: Bayern Munchen, Arsenal, Olympiacos, Dinamo Zagreb

Group G: Chelsea, Porto, Dinamo Kyiv, Maccabi Tel-Aviv

Group H: Zenit, Gent, Valencia, Olympique Lyonnais

A second mistery of this collection is that no players of Olympique Lyonnais are included. There are only three stickers in the group introduction (home kit, away kit, shining club badge).

The last part of the album includes some special sections. First the calendar of the competition with four stickers dedicated to the final in Milan: the logo (2 stickers) and the stadium of San Siro (two stickers). Then "Players to watch" with 15 stickers (4 shining) of interesting players of the competition. The choice of these players is rather questionable, as they are not all top players.

The section dedicated to the Finals includes 24 stickers on four players with posters of the Champions League finals since 1993. These are quite boring stickers, in which only the background changes.

"Winners" focuses on the last three Champions Leagues, with celebration stickers of winners Barcelona (2 stickers), Real Madrid (2 stickers) and Bayern Munchen (1 sticker).

"Most Goals" dedicates four shining stickers to the all time Top Scorers of the Champions League: Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, both with 77 goals.

Last two pages of the album are dedicated to two related competitions, the Women's Champions League (1 sticker) and the Uefa Youth League (1 sticker).

Album details

Full name: Uefa Champions League Season 2015/16

Publisher: Topps

Hardcover album: Yes (Germany and UK)

Competition: Champions League

Number of teams: 24

Stickers per teams: 18 (except Juventus and Roma with 19 stickers and Lyon with only 3 stickers)

Special sections: -Introduction (4 stickers)

                           -Final Milano 2016 (4 stickers)

                           -Finals (24 stickers)

                           -Winners (5 stickers)

                           -Most Goals (4 stickers)

                           -Women's Champions League (1 sticker)

                           -Youth League (1 sticker)

Total number of sticker: 619