Only Good Stickers: Euro Publishing

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".