The Johan Djourou SoccerStarz may come as a surprise for many collectors as the former Arsenal man left the Premier League back in 2014. However during the same year SoccerStarz agreed an exclusive promotion with a Swiss retailer which would involve 12 Switzerland players! SoccerStarz went forward and created the 12 Switzerland players but unfortunately the promotion did not proceed after the retailer could not agree terms with the Swiss FA. Only a small handful of these Switzerland players have ever been reused, the rest remain unreleased and will continue to sit in the SoccerStarz cabinet alongside the rest of the rare unreleased players.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar! One of the deadliest strikers Europe has ever seen. Despite scoring goals for huge European giants Real Madrid, AC Milan & Ajax, SoccerStarz never created Klaas-Jan Huntelaar…. However when the striker moved to Schalke our distribution partner in Germany was very keen to add Schalke to the SoccerStarz range, we moved forward but before sending these into full production our distribution partner had a change of heart and decided not to proceed with Schalke’s addition to the range. Nearly all of the Schalke range has been re-used into other club or international ranges (for example Max Meyer & Sidney Sam), but Klaas-Jan Huntelaar remains one of the last men standing in the SoccerStarz cabinet in his original unreleased Schalke kit.

Paolo Guerrero captained Peru through their qualification games and was a key part of the team that made the 2018 World Cup (the first time they had reached a World Cup since 1982).  Guerrero was actually set to miss the World Cup due to a ban, but this was appealed by the captains of the teams drawn to play Peru in the Groups – Hugo Lloris (France), Mile Jedinak (Australia) and Simon Kjaer (Denmark).  Despite crashing out of the group stage both Guerrero and the Peru national team managed to fulfil their dreams of representing their country in the World Cup.  In the lead up to the World Cup SoccerStarz had been contacted by a South American customer who was keen to do the Peruvian National team and specifically the captain Paolo Guerrero!  SoccerStarz reached out to Guerrero’s agent directly and even produced a master model to get the players approval.  Unfortunately due to the lead times and delays in the negotiations with the players agent this figure never got released and remains a rare figure in the SoccerStarz cabinet.