EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 212
album: ANTEPRIMA CALCIATORI (Panini)
stickers: 120 (1-120)
starter pack: mini album + 5 packets 2,90€
box: 36 packets (4 stickers per packet) 0,50€ each
If the intention was to revive the “glories” of the Super Calcio albums we are far from the result, if the intention was to fight the competition (external, Champions, internal, Fifa365) the same. Certainly there is a lot of reliance on a somewhat appetizing combination for fans, Panini and Calciatori.
Mini album in every sense, not only the size of the binder but obviously the stickers and the interiors as well. Remember certain pirate albums that come from South America, where for some teams you only have 3 or 4 stickers. Surely the Panini marketing department has made an understandable reasoning: we have a product that sells, we use the name Calciatori as much as possible. Not only with this product but perhaps also with a subsequent one, as can be seen from an internal page.
But it can also have its own reason, the choice of doing it so limited has the simple purpose of not clogging the market and creating the conditions so that it can be completed at low cost and in a hurry, so as to leave free space for the real Calciatori album that will arrive as always in mid-December.
The graphic layout is very simple, the stickers portray the players in action, 4 per club plus general pages per position (goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, forwards). There are no special stickers, the price of the packets looks good but in reality it is not, 0.50 for 4 mini stickers is not as cheap as it may seem.
Instead, we would have made an opposite product, giant, the same format therefore as the Calciatori, of a few pages but with the giant stickers of the players in action. No division by club, so it is bordering on annoying, but by role as the Super Calcio of the mid-90s were. Then go further, devote yourself to stickers that you know will not find space in the December album, from the history of football to maybe mascots and much more.
Honestly, there isn’t much more to add, “only for fans” albums and maybe not even for those. As with the cards, even with the stickers you cannot think of doing a thousand different things in the hope that people will always get hooked because they read Calciatori or Panini or both on the cover. Clearly no one is obliged to buy it, if with a box it is completed maybe it can only be seen as a way to sleep the voglino of the great December album. Here, probably the purpose is just that.
(EN)