JUVENTUS

Juventus, or the old lady as they are affectionately named, had 9 figures made as part of the Italian Superstars range of Headliners. 4 of which were released in March of 1997, the other 5 later that year in July, it is the ones released in July which are the most sought after.

 

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This set of 9 figures featured some of the worlds best players at that time. Peruzzi was Italy's number 1 goalkeeper at the time and this was the first release of the player and very good job Corinthian made of it too, a highly detailed sculpt with a fantastic kit replication, with him also being released later in ProStars series 2.

 

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Ciro Ferrara, Angelo Di Livio and Moreno Torricelli were also first time sculpts and the Torricelli has never been released again by Corinthian, making this the only version of this player, while Di Livio was also done in Italy national kit and Ferrara would feature in the ProStars range some years later.

 

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Croatian marksmen Boksic was sculpted for the 1st time and the sculpt captured the arrogance and indeed the confidence of the player, with a very laboured, somewhat lethargic expression on his face. He would also make several appearances in the ProStars range.

 

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Alessandro Del Piero was a must for inclusion in this range and he featured heavily in the advertising of this product in Italy. He has been re-sculpted and released many times over the years by Corinthian, in many different kits but i still regard this as the finest they ever produced as it captures the youthful maturity that Del Piero had at the time.

 

Also in th

e set were 2 French national legends, Zidane and Deschamps, both perfectly sculpted and well detailed, so much so that Corinthian used the same Deschamps sculpt for many subsequent figures of him later, including the versions of him made while he played for Chelsea, with both also being done in France national kit.

 

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What is worthy of note with regards the Zidane figure is his base code, he is SER102 in the Italian Superstars range but the same figure was previously released as part of the French national set of Headliners, where his base code is FRA008.

 

 

Due to the fact that Corinthian repainted the surplus French figures into the Juventus kit, or used the spare plastic moulding figures from the original production run to produce the Juventus figure, a number of the Juventus Zidane figures have been found to have the 'FRA008' base code on them! This does not make it another figure it is simply an oversight and a way of saving money on Corinthians part, why produce new figures when you have the same figure already but with a different code on the bottom.

 

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I have saved the best until last, the gem of this set is without question Nicola Amoruso. This figure is one of the rarest figures ever produced and gives the like of Kennet Andersson a run for their money in terms of value. Although not originally believed to be as rare as some of the others released in the second series of Italian Superstars he has over time proved to be just as troublesome found and has seen his value increase drastically over time.

 

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A great collection of figures with some superb sculpts and packed full of top quality players, sadly though not many collectors will have a full set due to Amoruso and his rarity.

 

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All 9 were released as single blister packs, coming with collector card and information file. There was also a 4 player pack released which contained Angelo Di Livio, Alen Boksic, Alessandro Del Piero and Moreno Torricelli.