2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship is out roughly 4 months earlier than 2023-24 Topps UEFA Flagship was released. This is a pleasant surprise as Topps soccer card releases usually start coming out near the tail end of the season. Of course there are on demand and now team sets that come out early, but it is nice to get a full hobby release before the end of the year. There is once again a 200 card base checklist with lots of rookies as we have come to expect in Topps products. Let’s see what you can expect.
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2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship Breakdown
Checklist – HERE
Box Makeup – Hobby (Search On Ebay) – 24 packs, 1 Auto or Relic, ~3 # cards
Blaster (Search On Ebay) – Exclusive Northern Lights
Hanger (Search On Ebay) – Exclusive Pink Sparkles
Print Run – ~ 1,625,000 Hobby packs (5600 cases), 1,150,000 Blaster packs, 100,000 Hanger packs
Rookies – Check out the 2024-25 Topps UEFA Soccer Rookie Card Breakdown
Soccer Cards HQ Review – 2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship is our first look at how 2024-25 Topps soccer products will fare in the post Lamine Yamal rookie card era. Despite not having Yamal rookies Topps has upped the print run when compared to last year, thankfully by not that much. There also aren’t Allen & Ginter on-card autos or UCL Draw Relic cards in this 2024-25.
Topps did add some new things to 2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship to help make up what they took away. Marks of Excellence (Search On Ebay) on-card autos are back for 2024-25 and will be in Flagship this year. They follow the similar design to last year. It will be pretty cool to have the chance to hit a Ronaldinho or Zlatan on card auto in the product even though the odds are very long. While last year had patch autos, the Premium Class set (Search On Ebay) this year looks much better than the Superstar Relics cards last year. There are dual autos for the first time in Flagship and the entire checklist is retired teammates. Topps put together some fun duos for this. Ultimate Stage autos also return. Topps also brought back a 1/1 Inscription card to get people excited. Last year it was Jude Bellingham and this year it’s his Real Madrid teammate Endrick and it’s a patch auto. Supposedly the Jude from last year still has not been hit. Shockingly Lamine Yamal does not have a single auto in the checklist. Breakers around the world had to hate seeing that they won’t be able to overhype a 2nd year card.
2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship will have the same problem that every 2024-25 Topps soccer card set has when comparing to last year…no Lamine Yamal rookie cards. If you read the rookie card breakdown above you will see why I don’t think there is a chance we have a Lamine in this set. That is not to say there aren’t some potentially great players in here. It’s just that they aren’t likely to explode during their rookie year like Yamal did. Then there is the problem that the 2 or 3 biggest rookies in the set have wookie cards. If you aren’t familiar a wookie card is a card of a player that has true rookie cards from the season before. Panini really did a number on Topps by smartly utilizing their licenses to get rookies of players that Topps either couldn’t or didn’t.
Short print and super short print variations are back this year. Topps has taken liberty with the definition of short print once again. There are ~950 short print. I can’t run the print run on the super short print because Topps messed up the odds page but it’s at least 70. Lamine Yamal does not have any SP or SSP cards either. His card which is #27 in the base checklist is replaced by Lionel Messi as card #27 in the SP and SSP checklist. Topps did this for other young players and legends as well.
There are a number of new inserts this year. Mojo (Search On Ebay) is a new Chrome card case hit and has a print run of ~350. Not exactly short print but Topps has done much worse for case hit print runs in the past. Epicenter (Search On Ebay) are only in Blasters and have a print run of ~135. Mindgame (Search On Ebay) is a new short print card exclusive to hobby and have a print run of ~70. There is a 1 card insert called Hype (Search On Ebay) which is just for Endrick. Topps really is trying to pretend that Enrick isn’t a wookie. There are only ~30 of those so that is good at least. Topps has put Sketch cards in 2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship. The first couple I have seen look great. Finally The Grail (Search On Ebay) is back for 2024-25 and this year it is none other than Lionel Messi. Like last year the print run on these is 50.
The Topps release price for 2023-24 Flagship was $75/hobby box. They are releasing 2024-25 Topps UEFA Flagship hobby boxes at $90/hobby box. The 2023-24 hobby boxes resell for $100-125 so maybe that is how Topps is justifying the increased release price despite the increase in production as well. I don’t think you need me to tell you that if Topps plans on increasing both release prices and production for 2024-25 products we are all in for a world of hurt. It probably won’t play out as significantly in Flagship at this price point as it will in other higher priced products. A 20% price increase on a lower end product is much different that a 20% price increase on a higher end one. If anything 2024-25 release prices should be 20% lower not 20% higher. In the end with this being the first major hobby product of the new season people will rip and breakers will break. Just remember that the Chrome cards that get included may have some collectability but the paper ones lose value as more premium cards get released. That is why Topps releases them first.
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