2015 CARREFOUR BELGIAN RED DEVILS

SoccerStarz teamed up with Belgium hypermarket chain Carrefour, to release a series of Belgian Red Devils SoccerStarz figurines. They were released at the start of May 2015, with the promotion scheduled to run until around mid July.

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Carrefour has 750 stores across Belgium, with the promotion also including a range of stickers and Panini trading cards. This was all done to increase support for the Belgium national team in the build up to Euro 2016 in France.

 

The series consists of 24 Belgium national football figures, all in home kit and released on Gold base only. It was satisfying to see that each player had a unique squad number, there are 24 figures with squad numbers 1-24 used without repetition.

 

Each SoccerStarz figure was released inside a sealed foil bag, so the figure you got was a mystery, with 50 foil bags being included in 1 box, otherwise known as a CDU (counter display unit) In each box you got 2 complete sets of figures and 2 random figures.

 

The set of Belgian Red Devils SoccerStarz brought 6 first time sculpts to the collection. Each figure was a new release as the kit was updated to the one released in the 2014 World Cup range. The 6 new sculpts are Divock Origi, who is owned by Liverpool but spent the 2014/15 season on loan an French Ligue 1 side Lille.

 

Laurent Ciman who plays his club football in the MLS for Montreal Impact, Nicolas Lombaerts who plays for Russian side Zenit Saint Petersburg, Anthony Vanden Borre who plays for Anderlecht in Belgium, however Vanden Borre has played in the Premier League for Portsmouth. Yannick Ferreira Carrasco plies his trade in the French Ligue 1 for AS Monaco, so it is expected that a release of him in Monaco colours would appear in the 2015/16 Collection.

 

Completing the set of 6 new sculpts is AS Roma star Radji Nainggolan, who's sculpt is superb and the stand out figure from the range. The Nainggolan has a very distinctive hair style and given the popularity of AS Roma all over the world, especially in the Far East and of course Italy, it was his figure which was most sought after.

 

The other 18 SoccerStarz are Adnan Januzaj, Thibaut Courtois, Axel Witsel, Toby Alderweiveld, Dries Mertens, Kevin De Bruyne, Nacer Chadli, Simon Mignolet, Jan Vertonghen, Marouane Fellaini, Steven Defour, Moussa Dembele, Eden Hazard, Christian Benteke, Kevin Mirallas, Romelu Lukaku, Vincent Kompany and Thomas Vermaelen.

 

SoccerStarz also produced a free game available to download on smart phones and androids, which allowed players to unlock extra games and levels by adding more SoccerStarz figures to the collection and thus unlocking that player in the game. Inside each foil bag was the SoccerStarz figure and with it a small download token which contained the unique code needed to activate the player in the game.

 

A great set of SoccerStarz figures, bringing 6 brand new sculpts to the collection and with Carrefour stores in other European countries, it left collectors wondering if further nations would have a release produced, only time would tell.

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A huge thanks to collecting legend Lennart Van de Winkel, who helped me to acquire stock of this product by visiting his local Carrefour stores.