Only Good Stickers: 2018

giovedì 27 dicembre 2018

Panini Bundesliga 2006/2007

Fussball Bundesliga 2006/2007 is the official sticker collection of the German Bundesliga, a series released by Panini since 1979.

At the end of the season 2006/2007, Stuttgart won their third championship in the Bundesliga, but failed the "double" after losing the DFB-Pokal final against Nurnberg. Mario Gomez (Stuttgart) was named best German footballer of the year. Top scorer of the season was the Greek forward Gekas (Bochum), but his sticker is not included in the album!

The collection starts with an introductory page going through the previous season. Here we find the first three stickers: Bayern Munchen celebrating the title (two stickers puzzle) and Miroslav Klose as best scorer of the season.

The following pages show the table of contents of the album (here the "My Panini" sticker is just printed on the album) and the DFB-Pokal 2005/2006 with pictures of the final Eintracht-Bayern=0-1, out of which three are real stickers and two just printed on the album.

The collection is a complete guide of the 18 competing clubs, which have 27 stickers over 6 pages each. In the first page there are the shining club badge and the puzzle of the team photo (4 stickers). In the second page, the club stadium is included with a puzzle of two metallic stickers. In the following two pages, there are the players of the squad with a total of 18 stickers. The fifth page includes two stickers: a new signing of the club in action ("Wie ist der Neuzugang?") and a goal celebration ("TOOOOOOR!). In the last page there are no stickers, but just club details, home games program, and the season 2005/2006 progress.

Last section of the album is about the football supporters that came to Germany for the World Cup 2006 ("Fans aus Aller Welt in Deutschland"). Here we find 12 pictures of supporters from all over the world, out of which six are real stickers.

Kevin-Prince Boateng (Hertha Berlin) and Paolo Guerrero (Hamburg) at the beginning of their career in the Bundesliga.

The new signing action sticker of Diego

Two German goalscorers: Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen) and Mario Gomez (Stuttgart)

Album details

Full name: Bundesliga Fussball 2006/2007

Publisher: Panini

League: German Bundesliga

Season: 2006/2007

Number of clubs: 18

Stickers per club: 27

Special sections:

Introduction (3 stickers)
DFB-Pokal 2005/2006 (3 stickers)
Fans from all over the world in Germany (6 stickers)

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers: 498

Topps Champions League 2017/2018

The third Topps sticker album of the UEFA Champions League is similar to its predecessor of the season 2016/17. Again, the collection was released early in the season, when the group stage composition was not yet known. For this reason, the 22 teams qualified in advanced are not shown following the groups composition but based on the nationality of the clubs (first the Spanish clubs, then the German, English, Italian, French, and so on). For these clubs there are 19 stickers over two pages: the club badge (metallic sticker), the kits (metallic sticker), the star player in action (big size metallic sticker) and 16 players. The other 10 clubs that qualified with the play-offs in August are placed in 10 anonymous pages later in the album. These teams have a total of 16 regular size stickers: the badge (metallic), the kits (metallic) and 14 players. The album begins with the table of contents and two metallic regular size stickers: the logo and the trophy of the Champions League.

The last part of the album includes some special sections. "The Road to Kyiv" includes the program of the competition (with mini-stickers of club names to be placed in the corresponding groups) and the sticker of the Kyiv stadium. "Players to watch" is a two-page section with 12 stickers of some of the best players of the competition (double metallic stickers for Neymar and Messi). "Final Cardiff 2018" celebrates Real Madrid victory of the season before (Juventus-Real Madrid=1-4) with four metallic stickers, whereas "Winners" is a page with the all time winners and 5 metallic stickers of the last winners. Last sections are dedicated to the Women's Champions League (1 metallic sticker) and Youth League finals 2017 (1 metallic sticker).

Back cover of the album

Best players of the Champions League 2017/18: Ronaldo, Modric, Salah

Stickers of Messi, Cavani and M'Bappé (with the wrong shirt, he moved from Monaco to PSG early in the season).

Album details

Full name: UEFA Champions League season 2017/18

Publisher: Topps

Release: September 2017

Competition: UEFA Champions League

Season: 2017/2018

Number of clubs: 32

Stickers per club: 19 stickers for the first 22 clubs and 16 stickers for the last 10 clubs

Other sections:

Introduction (2 stickers)
The Road to Kyiv (1 sticker)
Players to watch (12 stickers)
Final Cardiff 2017 (4 stickers)
Winners (5 stickers)
UEFA Women's Champions League (1 sticker)
UEFA Youth League (1 sticker)

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers: 604

domenica 16 dicembre 2018

Merlin's Premier League 2018

The 25th edition of the Premier League sticker collection released by Topps for the season 2017/2018 is a compact but rather complete collection including club badge, home/away kit, team photo, and 12 players per club. In addition there are 20 limited edition stickers (one per club) that can replace the regular stickers of some of the most representative players of the league.

The album opens with the foreword signed by Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City) and two big size stickers (Premier league logo and trophy). The 20 Premier League clubs are then shown in alphabetical order with a total of 15 stickers per club, out of which two big size stickers (kits and team photo) and one shining (club badge). The limited edition stickers are also printed on a shiny foil with a wavy effect.

In the middle of the album there are the two special sections of this collection: "Gamechangers" and "25 seasons of Premier League stickers". The first includes 16 big-size stickers of game-changing players from different Premier League teams, whereas the second goes through the history of the Merlin's Premier League albums with six stickers of representative players (Giggs, Wright, Shearer, Lampard, De Bruyne, Kane).