EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 298
album: Calciatori Adrenalyn TITANS 2023 (Panini)
cards: 252 (1-252) + 23 cards limited edition + 3 cards momentum
starter pack: binder + 6 packets + 2 cards limited edition 9,90€
box: 24 packets (6 cards per packet) 1,00€ each
special packets: Premium 5,00€, Premium Gold 10,00€
Football is criticized from many quarters, the reasons are many, some exaggerated, others weighted. Surely the most beloved sport in the world has its fans as well as its detractors. This also happens with stickers and cards. Although we have been the first to collect football players since time immemorial, we believe that often they are collections that inevitably cannot but repeat themselves.
Panini, like many other publishers, demonstrates the best of its potential, graphics and ideas in other collections. On the other hand, if it is true that football, seen as the enemy, actually helps to financially support all other sports as well, in the world of stickers, if we still find so many products on newsstands and there is still so much interest, it is thanks to the collections related to football that with their turnover and always new (and many old) collectors allow publishers to create even more.
Titans reaches its second year, having to make a choice, it is a different but perhaps more interesting collection than the monumental Adrenalyn, it is distinguished by a greater variety in the graphic proposal. If it is true that 9 players per team are few (considering only the basic collection of the first 180 cards) this allows for a less demanding total collection, easier to complete.
The idea of not making it a single collection but connected to the previous one is certainly apt, not so much in numbers as in the game connected to it. However, we remain convinced that the game, unlike Pokemon cards, is of interest to a much smaller audience.
Graphically captivating colors and backgrounds of the cards even if clearly distant from the context of the match and even less from the social colors of the clubs. A detail that probably only the “oldest” among us are interested in. As always, the need to give a title to the cards makes the adjective with which some players are presented (most of them, actually) not very credible, for example as “Legend”. The legends, excuse us, are different.
More interesting in some way are the multiple cards, three per club, which allow you to form a horizontal puzzle with the most used formation in the first part of the championship. Maybe in the future Panini could be more daring, creating a puzzle that can cover all 9 cards on a page. If it was done for Frozen, it can also be done for Calciatori Adrenalyn.
Anticipating Calciatori stickers himself, we find 33 “new signature” cards. Rather poor and insignificant winter transfer market (except for the legendary Ochoa), as for several years, but in any case they are new faces or with different jerseys, players or coaches, from our league.
In the 27 “World Star” cards we find a reference to the national team of the players of our championship who are protagonists in Qatar, starting with the world champions Dybala, Di Maria, Lautaro Martinez, etc.
In general, the Titans cards are more captivating than the Adrenalyn series, we think that the road to reach the level of other publishers is still long, all uphill if we think of what is made in the USA and beyond, but in any case it is undeniable that slowly, for some years now, there has been some improvement.
For those who want everything, the Momentum Cards, new for 2023 (3 or 5, in the printed guide we find “three” written but online we speak of “five”) and the 23 limited edition cards relatively easy to find, just buy all various products related to the collection, including the Bomber magazine.
(EN)