2024-25 Panini Donruss Soccer is here, and all the talk is about the colored KABOOM! this year. The good news is they are in fact full bleed. The bad news is they decided to make this year’s Donruss an country only product instead of country and club like they have done the last few year. The last time they used only country teams was back in 2021-22 Donruss Road To Qatar and that has been the worst Donruss set ever. Let’s take a look at what you can expect in 2024-25 Donruss Soccer.
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2024-25 Panini Donruss Soccer Breakdown
Checklist – HERE
Box Makeup – Hobby (Search On Ebay) – 12 packs, 1 Auto, 1 Patch, 3 Optic #’d
Print Run – ~3000 Hobby Cases plus Blasters and International boxes
Rookies – Cavan Sullivan, Maximilian Beier, Lily Yohannes, Amara Diouf
Soccer Cards HQ Review – 2024-25 Donruss Soccer is here and thankfully Panini didn’t screw us again on the colored KABOOMS! The Gold and Black KABOOM! (Search On Ebay) are full bleed this year unlike in 2023-24 Donruss Soccer where they made the monumental mistake of just making the word “Kaboom” colored. In case you are wondering, yes I am still baffled about that. With how hobby important Lamine Yamal has turned out to be, the fact that we were robbed of a proper Gold and Black KABOOM! rookie of him and Endrick makes the mistake look even worse. There are not any rookie KABOOM! this year at all. Lamine Yamal also does not get a 2nd year KABOOM! or any card in 2024-25 Donruss Soccer because Spain is not in the checklist. I ultimately think this will be a good thing for the set. More on that later. As for the players that did make the KABOOM! checklist 15 are current players and 10 are retired. The overall checklist is pretty strong with the names you would expect and some that will be getting their first KABOOM!. I would love to be able to tell you the exact odds of hitting a colored KABOOM! but without knowing if it will be possible to hit them in blasters and International boxes I can’t. We did see some come out of non-hobby boxes last year. If there aren’t any in non-hobby boxes the rate would be roughly 1 in 11 hobby cases. Just as a reminder these aren’t the only soccer KABOOM!s this year. There will be club KABOOM! in 2025 Panini Prizm Club World Cup. No word yet if there will be colored KABOOM! in those.
The reason I harped so much on the KABOOM! is because the Rated Rookies in 2024-25 Donruss Soccer are not that great. That was kind of what I figured when I realized it was a country only set. It’s really hard to get country rookies these days with Topps and Panini hopping on them so early for club cards. Panini did a good job of getting Cavan Sullivan (Search On Ebay) his first premium hobby card although I am not quite sure how as he has never played higher than U-17 for the US. The fact that it’s a USA card will help in the long run. I am sure he will be pumped up heavily because he is so young and American and the only clear male player to push. Just know he is going to have a ton of rookie cards by the time Topps and Panini are done with him. While that didn’t seem to hurt all that much with Lamine Yamal just know that even if Sullivan was as good as Yamal (he’s not), he likely won’t prove it on a big enough stage this year to sustain what is likely to be his high release prices. Lily Yohannes is another name you will probably be hearing a lot. She is a young USWNT player who is doing hobby relevant things at a young age. She already had her Topps rookie run in 2024 products and those cards don’t fetch huge values. These will be USA cards so they should do better. Maximilian Beier is another name that you may see. He is a German attacker that plays for Borussia Dortmund. He had a solid season for Hoffenheim last year which got him a move to BVB. He has not had as much success this year so far. Amara Diouf (Search On Ebay) is a 16-year-old winger for Senegal that just strictly based on age and position you can buy lottery tickets now for if that’s your thing.
The auto checklist is average because most of the players we have seen before. There are no Cristiano Ronaldo autos as well as Lamine Yamal of course. Some of the dual autos are interesting like the Zinedine Zidane/Thierry Henry (Search On Ebay), but nothing too crazy outside of that. I am not a fan of either auto design. They put too much emphasis on the name of the subset having it placed prominently on the card. I feel safe in saying most collectors would rather the name not take away from the player image.
Most of the inserts are names we have seen before. Night Moves (Search On Ebay) is back as a “super-rare” hit. That likely means a case hit but there will be some cases missing one like we have seen in the past. The design is a bit more reserved than the past few years. It was like they saw the comments about last years “rainbow anus” design and decided to do something safe. Animation (Search On Ebay) is a new insert that has an anime (obviously) type feel to it. Magicians is back as an insert for the first time in soccer since 2018 I believe. Those should do well for the same crowd that likes Manga cards.
Presale prices seem to be around $250/box right now. The product is going to be driven by the KABOOM!, especially colored. Not having Spain on the checklist as well as a lack of rookies will hopefully keep box prices down, but having colored KABOOM! means prices could head to $300 especially at the beginning as colored KABOOM! hype is raging. If they go much higher than $300 they become very boom or bust. Lamine Yamal 2nd year cards shouldn’t be a chase but I somehow feel like they will be so that is the reason not having them might help with the value here as breakers would’ve juiced his spot. Spain, Brazil and to a lesser extent even Croatia hurts the middle ground of the product. As always if you are buying loose boxes form anyone but Panini just assume the KABOOM! has been pulled. It may not have been, but in most cases it has.
Read more about the 2024-25 Topps Soccer Rookies. If you have any questions just shoot a DM on Twitter @SoccerCardsHQ or IG @SoccerCardsHQ You can also join the FaceBook Group and ask questions or watch the YouTube Channel.