Only Good Stickers: giugno 2024

giovedì 27 giugno 2024

Panini Calciatori 2024

Calciatori 2023/2024 is another magnificent album of the famous series produced by Panini for the Italian football. The collection includes an album, which is available also in the hardcover version, to be completed with 861 stickers and extra material composed by 10 Goal Machine cards (to be found in starterpacks, 100-packets boxes, updgrades), 40 slogan stickers (one in each packet) and 20 gold variant stickers available in the Upgrade box. In addition, with the codes printed on the slogan stickers it is possible to complete virtual albums of the Serie C and Women's Serie A 2023/24 on the Panini Digital collections website.

The album features the Italian professional leagues (Serie A, Serie B, Serie C) and the Women's Serie A. The introductory page includes four shiny stickers of the trophies (Serie A, Coppa Italia, Supercup, Serie B) and one shiny sticker dedicated to Gianluigi Buffon, head of the Italian delegation, just retired from football and part of the Calciatori collection since the season 1995/96.

The Serie A clubs are then shown in alphabetical order with four pages per club. In the first two pages there are 22 stickers: the shiny club badge, the team photo, and 20 player portrait stickers. In the second two pages, there are three stickers to be found in packets (the coach, the new signing, and the Elite stickers) and two additional stickers of players from the Upgrade set.

After the Serie A, there are some special sections. The first one is dedicated to the eSerie A, with seven stickers showing the club badges of the 14 competing teams. Player of the month (9 stickers) and Coach of the month (10 stickers) are stickers of awarded players and managers during the season that are distributed with the Upgrade set (released in March 2024) and with four special sticker packets (Calciatori Reload) included with the newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport between February and June 2024. The Upgrade set features also 40 stickers with the winter transfers. The last two sections before the Serie B teams are "La Panini più amata", with 20 stickers featuring the most voted Serie A players (one per team), and the Women's Serie A (team photo stickers of the competing clubs).

The Serie B section features for each club the badge sticker (half sticker), the team photo and five stickers of players (three players on each sticker). The Serie C section includes this year the team photo (half sticker) and the club badge (1/4 sticker) of the 60 clubs divided in three groups.

The Calciatori 2024 was preceded by the Calciatori Anteprima collection released in October and followed by the Calciatori Celebration set (May 2024) with the highlights of the season. Inter won its 20th title, dominating the championship (94 points) with the top goalscorer of the tournament, Lautaro Martinez (24 goals).

Back cover of the album

Young Argentinian talents: Matias Soulé (11 goals for Frosinone) and Valentìn Carboni (2 goals for Monza). The latter is included in the Upgrade set.

Young prospects from the Upgrade set: Kenan Yildiz (2005, Juventus) and Francesco Camarda (2008, AC Milan)

Inter strikers Lautaro Martinez (24 goals in Serie A 2023/2024) and Marcus Thuram (13 goals)

Album details

Full name: Calciatori 2023/2024

Publisher: Panini

League: Italian (Serie A, Serie B, Serie C, Serie A Femminile)

Season: 2023/2024

Number of clubs and stickers for each club:

Serie A (20 clubs, 25 stickers + 2 updgrade stickers)
Serie B (20 clubs, 6.5 stickers)
Serie C (60 clubs, 0.75 stickers)
Serie A Femminile (10 clubs, 1 sticker)

Other sections:

Introduction (5 stickers)
eSerie A Tim (7 stickers)
Player of the month (9 stickers, PM1-PM9)
Coach of the month (10 stickers, CM1-CM10)
Calciomercato (40 stickers, Upgrade set)
La Panini più amata (20 stickers, P1-P20)

Updates:

Upgrade set (91 upgrade stickers + 20 Gold variants + 3 Goal machines)
Calciatori Reload (4 special packets with P, PM and CM stickers)

Extra:

Slogan (40 stickers)
Goal Machines (10 limited edition cards)
Gold variants (20 stickers from the Upgrade set)

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers (album): 816

venerdì 21 giugno 2024

Euro Publishing - Inter 2023/2024

In the recent years, Euro Publishing released the official sticker collection of the main Italian clubs. We present here the sticker album of FC Internazionale Milano for the season 2023/2024, in which the club won the Italian championship, three years after the last success (2020/2021). This is a special title, being the "Scudetto" number 20 for the black & blue club from Milan, which means they can add a second star on the badge. Inter dominated the Serie A with 94 points, leaving AC Milan (75 poins) and Juventus (71 points) far behind. The Argentinian forward Lautaro Martinez was the top goalscorer of the league with 24 goals. He reached also a total of 129 goals for Inter, being the 8th topscorer of all times.

The sticker album begins with the calendar of the season and an introductory page including the Inter logo composed by three stickers. The squad 2023/24 is then introduced with 26 player portrait stickers, followed by the kits of the season (6 stickers). The album continues with the presentation of 14 new players that joined the club before the season. The most important were the goalkeeper Yann Sommer, the defender Benjamin Pavard, the midfielder Davide Frattesi, and the forward Marcus Thuram. There is then a section to celebrate the victory in the Italian SuperCup 2023, when Inter defeated AC Milan in Riad (3-0, Dimarco, Dzeko, Lautaro). Oddly the Italian Cup that Inter won few months later is not mentioned in the album.

The core of the album are the individual pages dedicated to the 26 members of the squad. Starting from the coach Simone Inzaghi and for each player there are five stickers in action. The last part of the album dedicates specific sections to Inter Women (8 stickers), Inter Primavera (youth team, 8 stickers), Inter Campus (5 stickers) and one page to the supporters, the stadium and the city (9 stickers).

In addition to the set composed by 216 stickers, there are also 30 cards with the players, the coach and four club badges. The cards can be found randomly in sticker packets (in average one card every three packets). If the sticker album is pretty simple to complete (one box of 50 packets includes almost a complete set), the card set is more challenging due to the scarcity of cards in the packets.

Overall, it is a good sticker book of the club for the season 2023/2024, but it is clear that it could be made more attractive. There are too many stickers of players in action, with some stickers almost identical, lacking variety in the set. Inspiration for additional sections could be taken from other albums: legends, caricatures, trophies, goalscorers of all times, etc.. Moreover there are no stickers made with special materials (shiny, fabric, pvc).

If this sticker album will stay as a memory for the 20th "Scudetto" of the club, this is not the only sticker/card set released for this occasion. To celebrate this special title, Panini released an official licensed trading card set ("I M 2Stars") including 50 cards and one random card with printed signature by one player of the squad, while Iqiqo produced a collection with album and 150 stickers going through all the 38 Inter matches in the Serie A 2023/2024. This diary collection is called "C'è solo l'Inter".