Only Good Stickers: febbraio 2021

lunedì 22 febbraio 2021

Panini Football 78

Football 78 is the third Panini album of the French football. The cover of the album has the same style of the album published in Belgium in the same year (Football 78) with just different colors and pictures. Also the layout inside the two albums are very similar.

The album begins with the fixtures of the season and the foreword by Jacques Ferran. Then the 20 clubs of Première Division are shown in alphabetical order. Each club is displaced over two pages with a total of 18 stickers: the team photo, the club badge, the coach, and 15 players. There are no special metallic or shiny stickers yet. Those will appear the following year (Football 79). Details and careers of each player are also included in the album.

AS Monaco won the title 1977/1978 despite being just promoted to the First Division. It was an extraordinary season for the Argentinian striker Carlos Bianchi, who scored 37 goals with Paris-Saint-Germain. The season will be also remembered for the great performance of Michel Platini (Nancy), who scored four goals in a game against Nice.

In the center of the album there are two International sections dedicated to the French National team. The first section is a summary of all the games played by France against other National teams. Here we find the sticker of the French Federation and 36 team badge stickers of the other National teams (half sticker each). The second section (Allez France!) presents the Franch team that will take part in the upcoming 1978 World Cup with 18 round stickers and the latest games with 17 action stickers.

This collection does not include the Second Division, but at the end of the album after all the clubs of First Division there is a section about the football stars of the past. Here we find 36 stickers of old football players with a description of their careers and achievements. Among them we can mention Jean Djorkaeff (father of Youri Djorkaeff), Just Fontaine (best known for scoring the most goals in a single edition of the FIFA World Cup, with 13 goals in 1958) and Jairzinho (World Champion with Brazil in 1970).

Back cover of the album

The charismatic French managers Aime Jacquet (coach of France during the World Cup '98) and Gilbert Gress (who is considered the menthor of Arsène Wenger)

Club badge stickers from Football 78

Michel Platini (18 goals in Division 1 1977/78) and Carlos Bianchi (top goalscorer with 37 goals)

Album details:

Full name: Football 78

Publisher: Panini

League: French (Première Division)

Season: 1977/1978

Number of clubs: 20

Stickers per club: 18

Other sections:

Bilan de l'Equipe Nationale (19 stickers)
Allez France! (35 stickers)
Les étoiles du passé (36 stickers)

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers: 450

martedì 16 febbraio 2021

Panini SPL 2007

SPL 2007 is the 14th Panini album of the Scottish football, since the first edition in 1992. The album begins with a welcoming page including the first two shiny stickers: the 2007 Scottish Premier League trophy and logo.

The album continues showing the 12 competing clubs in alphabetical order. Each club includes 34 stickers over six pages. In the first page there are the stickers of the club badge (shiny), the stadium (pvc transparent foil) and the team photo composed by four stickers. In the second page there are six stickers: the manager, the home kit (shiny), the away kit, and three stickers of players in action. In the following three pages the squad is presented with 18 player portrait stickers. Finally, on the last page, there are four stickers of players in action.

In the center of the album there is the section "Competitions", which is about a contest to win prizes. In these two pages there are four action stickers.

At the end of the album there are two special sections. The first one is "Attacking analysis", which studies the SPL striker performance with two action stickers per club (total of 24 stickers), whereas the second one is "Hoops Geers", which focuses on the fight for the title between Celtic and Rangers since the Premier League 1998/99. The latter includes four stickers of celebrations.

In addition, the collection includes also a poster with 22 exclusive stickers given away inside the "Scottish News of the World" with three special sticker sheets. The poster is a funny drawing of a madcap game.

The back cover of the album includes a Scottish Premier League table to be filled with PVC stickers of club names given away with the "Scottish Sun". In the season 2006/2007, Celtic won the Premier League title and Kris Boyd (Rangers) was the top goalscorer with 20 goals.