2014/2015 GERMAN EDITION

Creative Toys Company (CTC) teamed up with German toy manufacturer Simba, to produce a foil bag series of SoccerStarz. The product was released early September, just after the start of the new Bundesliga season and exclusively sold in Germany.

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The range is made up of 32 figures, consisting of 9 football teams and spanning 4 European leagues, with all figures being released in 2014/15 home kit.

 

Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund each have 8 SoccerStarz included, Bayern Munich's 8 are Manuel Neuer, Phillip Lahm, Dante, Thomas Muller, Mario Gotze, Franck Ribery, Bastian Schweinsteiger and the first ever release of Dutchman Arjen Robben! The Robben was a long overdue and much anticipated release.

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The 8 for Borussia Dortmund are Roman Weidenfeller, Marcel Schmelzer, Mats Hummels, Sven Bender, Marco Reus, Kevin Großkreutz, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Sadly coach Jurgen Klopp does not feature in this edition. Interestingly the sculpt of Sven Bender has changed from the German national release, so has his body pose.

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Barcelona and Real Madrid are Spain's La Liga representatives, with 4 SoccerStarz each. Real Madrid's chosen 4 are Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos and German International Sami Khedira, an obvious inclusion. The figures of Ramos and Ronaldo are in their original pose and exclusive to this series. For Barcelona we get Neymar Jr, Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta, again 4 obvious choices as they are the ones with the most global appeal.

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French Ligue 1 is represented by Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Paris Saint-Germain kit. The English Premier League makes up the remaining 7 figures, with Arsenal having 3, Chelsea 2, Liverpool and Manchester United 1 each.

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The 3 chosen for Arsenal are their 3 German internationals, Mesut Ozil, Per Mertesacker and Lukas Podolski, all wise choices for a German released product. For Chelsea we of course got German international Andre Schurrle, and he was joined by Petr Cech. Liverpool's selection was Steven Gerrard and Manchester United's was Wayne Rooney. Interestingly enough the back of the foil bag does not show images of Gerrard or Rooney, they are listed as 'extra special' mystery figures.

 

All SoccerStarz figures in this edition are on a Green base, something which came as a surprise to me, I was indeed expecting the figures to be released on a multitude of base colours.

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​The SOC codes are exactly the same as those previously used for the figures. The product was made available in boxes, or 'CDU' as they are known in the trade, of 48 pieces per box with the configuration per box looking the same, with 2 full sets of Bayern Munich & Borussia Dortmund figures, along with 1 of each other figure.

 

​This was the first foil bag release of SoccerStarz outside the UK and as you would expect from Simba, given their previous work with Corinthian on the MicroStars range, it is a very efficient, well executed range, very precise and tailored to meet the needs of the customer base.

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As mentioned above, I was personally surprised not to see the SoccerStarz produced on more base colours, however an all green base release no doubt speed up production as well as simplifying it. A great release with all figures in new 2014/15 home kit, it provided a right up to date release and gave new and existing collectors figures to acquire, including those 2 body pose exclusives of Ronaldo and Ramos.