"Absolute cheek"

Mockery and anger! Stars missing from the new EM album

Big anger among the fans! A closer look at the new European Championship sticker album from the "Topps" brand reveals that many stars have not even made it into the booklet. Instead, the team from Luxembourg is surprisingly included. You won't find Kylian Mbappé, Manuel Neuer or Florian Wirtz.

For the first time since 1980, the official sticker partner is no longer Panini. UEFA is joining forces with "Topps" in future. The US company secured the rights for the 2024 and 2028 European Championships, with none other than star coach Jose Mourinho as the advertising face.

728 stickers on 88 pages
The new European Championship album went on sale on Thursday. There are a total of 728 stickers to collect, spread over 88 pages. A pack of six stickers costs one euro. A new feature is that each team has four players who are presented as "Star Players" or "Players to watch". There is also a "Dream Team" page in the album, which can be freely decorated. But if you consider that many stars are not even included on closer inspection, the die-hard soccer fan will think twice about collecting ...

Götze, Kahn and Werner instead of Wirtz, Neuer and Kroos
For example, Manuel Neuer, Florian Wirtz, Toni Kroos, Antonio Rüdiger and Jonathan Tah, who are currently permanent fixtures in national coach Julien Nagelsmann's DFB squad, are missing. Instead: Mario Götze, Oliver Kahn, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Timo Werner.

Missing rights
The reason for this? A lack of rights to the images. Fans also have to do without a sticker of France's superstar Kylian Mbappé. Some association logos have also been replaced by national flags (e.g. Germany, England, France, Italy).

Austria: Sarkaria, Kalajdzic and Adamu in the magazine
From an Austrian point of view, no important ÖFB players are missing at first glance. Alaba, Arnautovic, Gregoritsch and Baumgartner have made it into the magazine - but so have Sturm's Manprit Sarkaria, Wolverhampton's Saša Kalajdžić and Freiburg's Junior Adamu.

Play-off participants in mini format
There are also more nations in the album than have actually qualified for the tournament. At the time of going to press, it was not yet clear who would prevail in the play-offs at the end of March. Collectors can therefore also stick in pictures of Luxembourg, Israel and Wales. The pages and stickers of the play-off participants are smaller than the rest, which is why the Polish players, for example, are only available in mini format.

"Absolute cheek"
The manufacturer "Topps" is earning a lot of ridicule online because of this. "The album is ridiculous, an absolute cheek," one user on X complains. Another wrote: "Topps seems to be even worse than everyone says."

At least: For the 2026 and 2030 World Cups, the Italian billion-dollar company Panini will once again take the collecting fun into its own hands. For this year, fans will have to make do with the inaccuracies ...