EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 101
stickers: 500 (not numbered)
album + complete set of stickers € 99.00
comment: it is really difficult to find a better album to inaugurate this 2020, certainly a rich vintage since we will have Euro, Copa America and maybe even an album on Copa Africa. Football will really be at the center of the stickers world!
For the friends of Qubotondo we have so much respect, so much so that we have given them the graphic management of our Celebrative Stickers, work that they are carrying out in an excellent way, just as this album was made.
Finally, after Euro76 (always Qubotondo), the Europeans of 1968 and 1972 also have their album. It is not an anastatic product (there is nothing released then), the amateur concept here is valid only in terms of the incredible passion with which Daniele, deux ex machina of Qubotondo, makes his albums.
The luck of a post album is the power to set it based on the results on the field, giving greater importance to the national teams that have reached the final stages. Always keep in mind that we are talking about competitions not like the current ones. Only semi-finals and finals were organized in a single country, previously all of Europe was involved in the tournament. We can also speculate about the enormous difficulty in finding the images to prepare the stickers, especially with the smaller national teams. Also from this point of view the work has been excellent. The choice to unify the two editions is due to the need to make the album full-bodied, the choice to make it in English is a wise idea to go beyond the border. Scoreboards, statistical data, period photos, stickers as a fantastic fill.
The album opens with Euro 68 and of course with the European champion Italy (only once, at least so far), 27 total stickers of good quality and attention to detail. Following Yugoslavia, England and the Soviet Union, all with three pages of images and stickers, it is difficult to find even almanacs of the time with the same images. Following the other protagonists who did not reach the final phase, 18 stickers each for Bulgaria, France, Hungary and Spain. The other national teams are presented by qualification group in which they participated, from 4 to 1 stickers per national team but there are ALL! Grand finale with the scores of all the qualifying matches of the groups and their scorers.
Euro 72 is Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany European Championship (who will also win the 1974 World Cup against their favorite Netherlands). Unlike the ’68 we find stickers of moments of the final match between West Germany and the Soviet Union, then many stickers of the two national teams and the other two semi-finalists: Belgium and Hungary. Honestly, finding all those images of different players from Hungary and the USSR for 1972 and 1968 must not have been easy at all. Here too the album continues with 18 stickers from other great national teams such as England, Yugoslavia, Italy, Romania and finally all the others, from 4 to 1 stickers per national.
Some may not agree on the limited number of stickers for the other national teams, but in addition to a certain difficulty in finding the images, the album would have become monumental. Moreover, it is set up as the Panini of Euro80, in relief the national teams reached the final stage and in the background the stickers of the other unqualified.
Even the choice not to number the stickers (probably linked to economic reasons) makes research more exciting, discovering the names and faces of footballers of an era that seems really light years away from today. In addition, the album is sold with the complete set so there is no spasmodic search for the missing sticker of a standard product.
And now? Of course we hope for the release of another unified album for Euro 60/64, perhaps on the occasion of Figurine Forever 4 in January 2021. In order not to remain just a dream, it would be necessary to help Qubotondo in finding the necessary images and maybe .. in making them know that THAT must be the next album!
Simply unique, always limited edition, pleasure for a few, but absolute pleasure
Final judgment 10/10 (praise will be added to the announcement of the album 60/64 :P)
(EN)