When you hear the name Topps, the first thing that most people will think of is baseball cards. But they produce far more than that. In England, they’ve been producing soccer cards for years, but they recently launched a new product that is a departure for them as well as a move to become more modern.

Topps has released a virtual sticker album featuring legendary England footballers. The virtual album allows you to do everything you would normally do with stickers and an album. Open packs, and put the stickers in place. Trade duplicate stickers with other people. Plus you can flip through the sticker album as you normally would.

The album contains a free pack of stickers to get you started. Other packs are available to purchase directly from the virtual album via PayPal.

Inside the album, there are stickers from important moments in England national team history, the 1966 World Cup triumph, England legends from Billy Wright and Bobby Moore through to modern day legends, memorable goals, England kits through the years, and many more features.

For a virtual album, it’s well done with plenty of features and well-designed stickers that are thought out and not thrown together.

However, nothing beats the smell, touch and pleasure of collecting real stickers and putting them in a physical album. I appreciate Topps’s efforts to go virtual, but one of the intrinsic benefits of collecting soccer stickers is the physical part of it — where you get to touch the stickers, flip through the book and enjoy collecting. In the virtual sticker album, it’s not the same thrill. It’s manufactured and doesn’t feel anywhere near the same.

The England virtual sticker collection is online at http:\/\/eng1.topps.co.uk/.