2024-25 Topps Definitive Collection UEFA is a new Topps soccer card set. Topps have put out Definitive in baseball for many years and football in previous years they had the license. I am going to be honest this is one of the tougher sets to figure out. It is definitely a premium product thanks to it being mostly an on-card autos. It comes with a super high per box cost since most boxes will have 8 autos. That said there are parts of it that are super confusing so I am not sure how the aftermarket will ultimately respond. More on that in the review below.
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2024-25 Topps Definitive Collection UEFA Breakdown
Checklist – HERE
Box Makeup – 8 Auto or Auto Relic cards (Search On Ebay)
Print Run – Not certain since no odds have been published but slightly over 200 cases feels about right
Soccer Cards HQ Review – Once I saw the checklist I knew that 2024-25 Topps Definitive Collection UEFA was going to be a “feel good” product at the price they were releasing it at for those that can afford to drop over $4,000 on a box of soccer cards. We have been so starved for on-card autos in soccer that a set where you are probably going to get at least 7 in a box is going to feel great when compared to most other sets. There are some sticker autos, but they don’t seem too prevelant. The checklist is stacked with legends as well and it always is nice when you the player you hit is someone you know and has had some level of success. There are also some cool on-card rookies and rookie patch autos in here which we definitely don’t have a ton of in soccer. Those are all recipes for a great set.
Some of the things that confuse me about this is how the set was put together. The Marks Of Gold (Search On Ebay) cards which is mostly Jude Bellingham along with one Lionel Messi was cards that were intended to go in the seemingly scrapped Topps Bold set. Now that they are in a more higher end product will they be treated differently than if they were in their intended set? I am guessing they probably will which is great if you are opening this considering there’s a pretty good chance you are going to get one in a case. The other cards that are a big confusing are the Aitana Bonmati Trophy Shavings and Lamine Yamal Red Carpet Auto (Search On Ebay) cards. These were both 1/1 cards included in Topps Now. I’ll be interested to see what these look like in comparison to the Topps Now cards. There are also the Official UCL Draw Card autos which usually come in Flagship but now they will be Gold Framed. When you add in the Marks OF Excellence there are a lot of cross set cards in here which is not how Topps usually treats Definitive.
The Marks Of Excellence (Search On Ebay) cards will carry a lot of weight in this product. Every box I have seen so far has had 2 and if they printed the full number of parallels for each player then you could in theory get more than 2 in a box even though the sales sheet states 1-2 per box. The MOE checklist is missing Lionel Messi and shockingly no Lamine Yamal “rookies”. There are some big names and in theory every case should have a case hit worth MOE card from someone like Erling Haaland, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo or Ronaldinho to name a few.
If Lionel Messi has a full run of parallels for every card on the list he would have 70 cards. It will come down to how many Legendary Autograph Collection cards he has. The checklist has the caveat of All cards numbered to /25 or fewer. If we start seeing Messi /25 of those then the average would have you hitting a Messi in 1 in about every 3 cases. If not it could be much less. Lamine Yamal will only have 17 total cards in the set so he will be a lot harder to hit. I am also interested to see the Lamine Yamal cards to see if they are sticker auto or not. If they did manage to get him to sign on-card for this set how did they not manage to get him in Dynasty?
The Rookie Patch Autographs (Search On Ebay) in the set are nicely done cards. I haven’t seen many so far but all the ones I have were player worn. The Ethan Nwaneri says Match Used so we will have to see which players have which. To get some true match worn RPA’s is a great addition to soccer cards.
The only Starball Patch Auto (Search On Ebay) I have seen was player worn. Considering all of the Starball autos in Dynasty are said to be match worn I am surprised these would be player worn. They are all 1/1 cards so there surely had to be some match worn Starball patches laying around. That said the Kaka in the preview sheet says Match Worn so there are some.
What I am having trouble with is how the aftermarket will respond to singles of this. In baseball Definitive cards do OK but nothing compared to say Dynasty. Of course, baseball is used to having on-card autos and we in soccer aren’t. Topps did use a lot of trophy holding cards and some inscriptions and those do well in soccer. The disjointed nature of the set takes a little bit from the high end feel to me. When you see a Dynasty card for instance you know it’s a Dynasty card. With Definitive there are so many different designs and some sticker as well as lots of player worn patches it doesn’t have the same feel. If we had more on-card autos in soccer I don’t think this set would be all that desired, but since we don’t it likely will. If you got the product at $4000 a box congrats as I think that is a good buy. The problem is with such a limited print run with lots going to breakers how long will it stay there as we know that is usually a recipe for artificial box price inflation? I think this is a much higher floor product than Dynasty hence it’s a “feel good” product. I think the ceiling is much lower than Dynasty as I am not sure most of these cards are truly collectible. The gold standard in the hobby is match worn on-card autos and Definitive doesn’t seem to have a ton of those. Most Definitive cards feel more like a commodity type card then a coffin type card although there are certainly some coffin cards in here. My biggest takeaway from this set is something I did a Walkin With HQ IG Live a few months ago. With Topps finally give us lots of on-card autos what happens to the value of all these sticker autos? I guess only time will tell. The good news if you are holding sticker autos is that Topps keeps using the same group of players for their on-card auto checklists. I am as interested to see how 2024-25 Topps Definitive Collection UEFA plays out in the long run as I have been about any soccer card set in recent memory.