Only Good Stickers: 1998

giovedì 14 marzo 2024

Panini Calciatori 1997-98

Calciatori 1997-98 is the official sticker collection of the Italian football, covering all the professional leagues from Serie A to Serie C2. This is the first album with Ronaldo, who moved from Barcelona to FC Inter in the summer 1997. In addition, this collection is full of football stars playing in Serie A, like Zidane, Del Piero, Baggio, Pirlo, Djorkaeff, Batistuta, Veron, Mancini, Totti, Buffon, Cannavaro, Maldini, with special stickers dedicated to Vieri and Zola, playing abroad at that time.

The album starts with the Serie A clubs in alphabetical order. For each club there are 21 stickers: the shiny club badge, the team photo (two stickers), and 18 player portrait stickers, with the careers printed on the album. After the Serie A clubs, there is the only additional section of this album, featuring 40 stickers of player caricatures made by the artist Achille Superbi. Here we can admire the comic version of the best Serie A players.

The album continues with the Serie B section, including 9 stickers for each club: the shiny badge, the team photo, and 7 stickers with two players per sticker (for a total of 14 players). The album features then the Serie C1, with the club badge (half sticker) and the team photo stickers of the 36 clubs divided in two groups, and the Serie C2, with just the club badge sticker of the 54 clubs divided in three groups (one sticker includes four club badges). There are no updates for this collection.

In the season 1997/98, Juventus won the Serie A with controversial episodes, especially a not given penalty to Ronaldo during Juventus-Inter. However, the destiny in the European cups has been different: Juventus lost the Champions League final against Real Madrid (0-1), whereas Inter won the UEFA Cup (3-0).

Back cover of the album

The fantastic Roberto Baggio: regular and caricature stickers

Young Italian talents that won the World Cup eight years later: Andrea Pirlo and Francesco Totti

Top stars in the Italian Serie A 1997/98: Ronaldo and Zidane

Future football managers: Roberto Mancini and Max Allegri

Two young talents rising in AC Parma: Gigi Buffon and Fabio Cannavaro

Oliver Bierhoff, the top scorer of the Serie A 1997/98 with 27 goals, and George Weah, striker of AC Milan

The caricature stickers of Vieri and Zola with the uniform of Italy, as they played abroad in 1997/98

Album details:

Full name: Calciatori 1997-98

Publisher: Panini

League: Italian (Serie A, Serie B, Serie C1, Serie C2)

Season: 1997/1998

Number of clubs and stickers per club:

Serie A (18 clubs, 21 stickers)
Serie B (20 clubs, 9 stickers)
Serie C1 (36 clubs, 1.5 stickers)
Serie C2 (54 clubs, 0.5 stickers)

Other sections:

Achille Superbi li vede così - Caricatures (40 stickers)

Update: No

Checklist: click here

Total number of stickers: 679

giovedì 28 aprile 2022

Panini Football 98 (Belgium)

Football 98 is the 26th edition of the Panini Belgian series, celebrating thus 25 years since the first edition in 1972/1973. For this occasion the collection features also a poster with 25 stickers of the album covers of the series. For the rest, the album has the usual layout starting with the Panini Revelations (six stickers out of which two shinies) and including both the Division 1 and Division 2.

For the clubs of Division 1 there are 19 stickers over two pages: the shiny badge, the team photo (two stickers), the coach, and 15 players. Those pages include also the player careers.

The section with the clubs of Division 2 starts with a double page including the club badge (half size shiny sticker) and the team photo sticker of the 18 competing clubs. Then the squads are shown with 12 players per team (six stickers with two players).

The additional poster includes 25 stickers with the covers from 1973 to 1997 and the big iconic Panini picture on the background.

In the season 1997/98, Club Brugge dominated the championship, totalizing 84 points. Branko Strupar (Genk) was the top goalscorer with 22 goals