Only Good Stickers: giugno 2020

martedì 30 giugno 2020

Football League 96

Panini published the second album of the English Football League for the season 1995/96, after the first edition of the previous year (Football 95). The album covers the three divisions below the Premier League (Division One, Two, and Three) and it is simlar to its predecessor, starting from the almost identical cover. There are however less stickers in total (468 compared to 600 of the previous edition) as there are no stickers for the introduction and the kits. Moreover the badge stickers of Division Two are half size.

After the preface with no stickers, the clubs of Division One are shown in alphabetical order from Barnsley to Wolverhampton. For each club there are 14 stickers: the shiny metallic badge, the team photo, and 12 players.

Clubs of Division Two have four stickers of players (three players on each sticker) and a shiny badge (half sticker). For the clubs of Division Three only the team stickers are included. The album ends with the acknowledgements to the clubs, as in the previous edition, but with no extra section or sticker.

Back cover of the album

In the season 1995/1996, Sunderland won the First Division and got promoted to the Premier League together with Derby County and Leicester City. In the Second Division, Swindon Town won the title, whereas in the Third Division Preston North End were the champions. Top goalscorers of the leagues were John Aldridge (Tranmere, Division One), Marcus Stewart and Gary Martindale (Division Two), and Steve White and Andy Saville (Division Three).

Shiny club badge stickers of Sunderland and Leicester City. Both clubs were promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season

Best scorers of Division One: John Aldridge scored 26 goals (1st place) for Tranmere Rovers, whereas Dean Sturridge 20 goals for Derby County (2nd place together with Dougie Freedman, Crystal Palace)

Album details:

Full name: Football League 96

Publisher: Panini

League: English (Division One, Two, and Three)

Season: 1995/1996

Number of clubs and stickers per club:

Division One: 24 clubs, 14 stickers
Division Two: 24 clubs, 4.5 stickers
Division Three: 24 clubs, 1 sticker

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers: 468

venerdì 26 giugno 2020

Panini Clausura 2005 (Argentina)

Panini published the first album of the Argentine league with the 2005 Clausura tournament. The album has a simple layout, including only the clubs of Primera Division with no extra sections. Also the quality of the player photos is something not up to the usual Panini standard. However, the colleciton includes fancy metallic club badges and remarklable players. In particular the rookie Sergio Aguero and several young players that moved to Europe in the following years (Mascherano, Lavezzi, Palacio, etc.).

The tournament started in February and ended in July 2005. Velz Sarsfield were champions with 39 points, second place for Banfield (33 points) and third for Racing Club (32 points). Mariano Pavone (Estudiantes) was the top scorer of the tournament with 16 goals. The Clausura tournament was followed by the 2005 Apertura tournament, for which Panini published another sticker collection.

We present in the following a Clausura 2005 album with a complete loose set. For the first six clubs in the album (River Plate, Boca Jrs, Independiente, Racing, San Lorenzo, and Velez), there are 23 stickers over three pages: the metallic badge, the team photo (two stickers) and 20 players. The other 14 clubs have only 18 stickers over two pages: the metallic badge, the team photo (two stickers) and 15 players.