Swansea City
Capital One Cup Winners 2012/13

The 2013 Football League Cup final was played on the 24th of February and contested by Swansea City and bradford City, 2 teams which nobody would have predicted could have made it all the way to the final. Swansea had beaten Liverpool and Chelsea along the way to the final and were hot favourties to lift the cup.

The final itself was a very one sided affair, with the Premiership quality of Swansea's players over riding the heart and desire of the Bradford side, in the end the quality told. Nathan Dyer and Jonathan De Guzman both bagged braces, while Michu once again found himself on the score sheet. Michael Laudrup led the Welsh side to their very first major cup win, the fact it was the clubs centenary year made it alll the more special.

SoccerStarz already had the Swansea license amongst their portfolio and a good number of these sculpts were already in produciton, so the decision was made to release a very special box set to commemorate this historic cup win. The box set would comprise of the entire starting 11, the 3 substitutes that were used, as well as manager Laudrup, making it a 15 figuure pack.

As it was Swansea's centenary year it was decided that the figures would all be released on a GOLD base, a nice touch and something thatreally added to the allure and collectability of the pack. Each pack was issued with a certificate of authenticity, to validate it was one of only 600 produced, with each certificate being individually numbered.

The pack would feature 4 EXCLUSIVE sculpts, those 4 being Gerhard Tremmel, who had been used as goal keeper for the entire tournament and kept his place ahead of regular first choice keeper Vorm. The other 3 exclusives were the 3 substitutes, which were Roland Lamah, Garry Monk and Dwight Tiendalli. Those 4 figures would not be released seperatley.

Swansea's kit sponsor for the 2012/13 season was a betting company called '32RED' this posed a problem for SoccerStarz, as they were not permitted to advertise this betting company on their product. This dilema was solved in a rather ingenious was, instead of having the kit sponsor on the shirt, they instead opted to have the year the club was founded '1912' in GOLD writing accross the shirt, which as it was the club's centenary year, made it a rather apt and fitting touch.

The box set was initially scheduled or release in the Summer, however it suffered a heavy delay and was not actually released until Mid-December, making it the perfect Christmas gift for Swansea fans and SoccerStarz collectors alike. The box set was priced at around £70-80, a reasonalbe price given the extremley low production quantity and the inclusion of 4 exclusive sculpts, add to that the fact they were all done on a GOLD base, a great pack ,very well thought out and put together, a must for any SoccerStarz collector.