Welcome to the Playmobil Playroom, where we take a monthly peek inside those impressive blue boxes and see what treasures await within. Sometimes we’ll have step-by-step photos walking you through assembly, maybe we’ll discuss and review a particular set or theme, or maybe we’ll have an unboxing video.
My son just started a soccer coaching class for little kids and he and his little sister have been loving soccer. They were very excited to see the Take Along 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Arena Building Set and the players.
Here’s their first impression of the set. They were very excited!
Most importantly, the diversity of the figures meant they immediately picked up on the representation, instantly choosing the figures for their teams that they identified with.
The take along case was very easy to open for my son, and they were very excited to see its contents.
Specs:
- Product Number: Arena 9298, Brazilian 9510, French 9513
- Number of Pieces: 31 pieces for the soccer field set and 8 pieces for each individual player
- Number of figures: The field set comes with 4 people (2 regular players and 2 goalies)
- Extras required: None!
Ease of Build:
On a scale of 1-5, this set is a 3. For the most part all of the pieces go together pretty easily, but the stands and kicking mechanisms for the players were a little bit trickier to assemble than average. The stickers that went along the inside of the arena were also a little harder than average just because they are long stickers that need to be aligned well to fit.
Coolest Features:
- The goalie sticks that allow you to swivel and spin the goalies.
- The players actually kick the balls!
- The green field is flocked so not only does it have a grass texture, it also provides a little friction for the players and balls.
- The individual players come with both number stickers and blank name stickers, and the kids wanted their names on the players.
- The bottom of the box has pop outs to make a score card and a target for kicking practice. I love clever re-use of the packaging that would otherwise go into the recycling bin!
Playability:
This set has already gotten a ton of play time in our house. Not only do my kids love playing the ability to play soccer and kick balls in the house, but they have brought figures from their other sets to be spectators (and sometimes interference).
The FIFA set is also one of the Take Along series of playsets, which means the field itself is a carrying case that all the parts can go into. Not only does this make it portable, it also makes it a lot easier (and more likely) that it gets cleaned up and nothing lost after play time. I wish all of our bigger toys doubled as carrying cases!
The only real con of the set is that the mechanism for making the players kick the ball is a bit of a challenge for my daughter, but she’s only 2 and the set is for 5+ (which my son is and he quickly picked up on how to make the players kick).
(Disclosure: This Playmobil set was provided free of charge for review purposes. All opinions remain our own.)
