My Top 3 Soccer Card Buys This Week Under $2
I’ve recently just started to get into investing in soccer cards. Playing and watching the sport my whole life, I have a pretty good knowledge of the game, the players, and the teams that dominate the sport. There’s been a big boom in sports cards in the past couple of years, and many, including myself, believe that soccer could be the next big thing. With all sorts of new lines being printed for the first time, the big companies think so too. Let’s just hope the impending recession/depression doesn't kill this before it starts. I don’t think it will, though. Sport is something that people always want, and cards are just the new (old) way of showing support.
After looking at the general market, I decided to focus on Panini Obsidian cards. They were just released in January for the first time and are all limited edition. The most number of copies that a card can have is 199. This means that in a year, two, or three, there won’t be too many in the market, which will hopefully cause demand to rise.
However, I don’t have too much money to be investing right now, and I know many others don’t either. So I wanted to make a list of 3 cards that I bought this week for under $2 that I think have the potential to increase in value drastically in the next few years. This mostly depends on the future success of the players, as well as the bet that Obsidian cards will become sought after.
- Paul Pogba — Obsidian Base /165
For those who aren’t familiar with soccer at all, Paul Pogba is a powerhouse in the sport. He was sold by Manchester United to Juventus for less than $1m in 2012, then was bought back by Manchester United for $115m just four years later. In that time, he had proven his worth and made a statement that he was one of the best players in the world by helping his team win 4 straight Italian Championships.
Since then, while Manchester United team hasn’t won too much, he has led the team to a Europa League championship, as well as a League Cup. He also was a huge part of the 2018 World Cup winning French team. This video of him pumping his teammates up before the final match shows how much of a leader he is.
Pogba has an 88 rating and 90 potential rating on FIFA, which is a very good indication of how good he is and can become. He has a current market value of $110m, and is seemingly really pushing for a big money transfer to Real Madrid or even Juventus, where he is more likely to win the Champions League. The Euros are also coming up next year, and France, again, have a great chance of winning with the likes of Pogba, Mbappe, Kante, and Griezmann leading the line.
Another big reason I feel like this card and its parallels will increase in value is because Pogba is a hugely liked character in world sport. His face is plastered on Adidas stores and billboards across the world. He has over 40 million Instagram followers and 7.3 million on Twitter. And at the end of the day, people by cards because they like the players, not necessarily because of the amount of talent the player has.
I bought this card for $1.56. Currently, you can buy the card for $6.99 shipped on eBay. The main reason I got it so cheap was because I was able to bundle it with other cards and save on shipping, so keep an eye out for those kind of deals, as well. But prices do fluctuate greatly still, as the market is not really solid.
2. Paulo Dybala — Obsidian Pitch Black /135
Paulo Dybala is in a very similar position as Paul Pogba. He is a world class player, who plays with Cristiano Ronaldo for Juventus and Lionel Messi for Argentina. At 26, he still has several years left to prove himself and possibly fill the shoes of Messi or Ronaldo as the world’s best.
Dybala has helped Juventus win 4 straight Italian titles and directly participated in 30–40% of Juventus’s goals this season: more than Ronaldo in the Champions League and Coppa Italia. He also stands to be one of Argentina’s star players in the next World Cup or two, and they always have a chance of winning.
Dybala is currently rated 88 on FIFA with a potential of 91. He even got a FUT card last season at a 99 rating. He’s valued at $99m and could be included in a swap deal for Pogba this summer. This kind of transfer would bring lots of attention to him, as well as make him the main man, as he wouldn’t be underneath Ronaldo anymore.
He’s almost as popular as Pogba with 37.3 million Instagram followers and 2 million on Twitter. He is also representing Juventus (Piedmonte Calcio) in the #CombatCorona FIFA 20 Charity Stream Competition after catching the virus, himself.
I think he’s a big name, who will only get bigger once he takes over from Messi and Ronaldo.
I paid $1.94 for this card. Again, it was part of a bundle deal, but this price includes shipping and tax. It’s not hard to get 5 cards for $10–15.
3. Benoit Badiashile — Obsidian Base Purple Rookie Card /65
This card is very different from the previous two because unlike Pogba and Dybala, Badiashile is relatively unknown. At 19 years old, this season was really his first full season at the top level, making 16 appearances for Monaco in League 1. I know Monaco is not exactly Juventus or Manchester United, but they won the league a few years ago and have created some of the best talent in the past couple decades, including Mbappe, James Rodriguez, Anthony Martial, Bernardo Silva, Yaya Toure, Thierry Henry, and more.
He is a center back, so he probably won’t ever be the most popular player in the world, but Virgil van Dijk has shown that you can get massive popularity as a defender. Badiashile’s market value has also increase 5x from this time last year: $4.4m to $22m. He is 6th most valuable player born in 2001. He is being linked with clubs across Europe, such as Napoli, Wolfsburg, Chelsea, and Real Madrid. Not to mention he is French and already has 15 caps for the U19 French Team. With the Euros being pushed back a year, he could be a possibility for that team, which is a favorite to win. If not the Euros, then the World Cup the following year.
Badiashile is only ranked 72 on FIFA currently; however, he has a potential of 86, which is a great sign for massive growth is the coming few years.
This is much more of a gamble than the other two, but you get more for your money. Not only is this a rookie card, but you can buy rarer cards for less money. I bought this card for $1.62 in a bundle, and it’s only 1 of 65 in the world. A /35 sold for $5.75 on Feb. 27. So I would do more research in this player if you’re going to invest more than a few dollars, but I really think this kid could be worth it.
There are tons of cheap cards out there. So keep an eye out and go for bundle deals when sellers have multiple cards ending around the same time. You can also usually get better deals on auctions than you can on Buy It Now listings, but that’s not always the case.
