Another Soccer Re-Pack of Stars

Back in May I posted the contents of a soccer re-pack that I'd picked up on eBay to ease the sheltering-in-place boredom.  I know soccer cards aren't the most well-received subject matter here on the blogs, but I think they're fun.  In fact, I enjoyed that first re-pack enough that I picked up two more from the same seller about a week later.

They've been sitting waiting until this week, when I cracked open the first of the two.  Here we go...

The cover card was this 2018 Donruss Christian Pulisic.  I get to see Christian play quite a bit now that he's with Chelsea in the Premier League (my soccer league of choice given that I get 90% of the game's with my YouTube TV package).

Next up, a couple of Prizm 2018 World Cup base cards.  I've actually completed this 300-card set (or at least will have whenever my COMC order eventually gets here), so both this card...

...and this one were dupes for me.  No worries, off to the trade/giveaway stack they go.  Onward and upwards...

Ronaldo is like the Mike Trout of soccer cards, in that even though I don't collect him I'll always gladly add just about any of his cards to my collection.  Widely recognized as one of the top two talents in the world over the last decade or two, happy to have this Donruss base card.

Dele Alli is another Premier League player (Tottenham Hotspur) who I enjoy watching.  Enough so that I'd like to pick up a nice, shiny parallel version of this someday.

I have no idea who Scott McTominay is, I have to confess.  I watch a lot of Premier League but am far from a "superfan" or anything like that. 

So, instead of commenting on the card I'll instead mention that I'm now in some small way a part "owner" of Manchester United!  In the Stash application that I use to invest in the stock market, I noticed that MANU was listed the other day.  I picked up a whopping $10 worth and yes, you are now reading the blog of a man who has a vested interest in Manchester United's performance!  Early retirement, here I come...

2018 Donruss seems prevalent in this particular re-pack.  Not complaining, just observing.

Here's a real loud "Revolutionaries" insert from Panini Revolution.  This entire product could be described as loud, as I recall it.  To be fair though I think the sum total of my experience with it is a single rack pack I grabbed at Target a few years back.

Donruss soccer also has Rated Rookies!

Here's a cool one.  Not that I'm familiar with the player at all, but I did bust a hobby box of this 2015 Donruss set, and I enjoy a good parallel.  There were different flavors of "Press Proof" parallels in the set (that covered both the base cards and the inserts, actually), with this one being the Silver version (#'d /199).

Again, not familiar with the subject here, but I do enjoy cards that use the "Wave" texture like this.  This would be a cool insert set to put together and display in a binder someday.

Back to the 2018 Donruss trough.  Neymar Jr is, or at least was for some time, considered a top 5 player in the world, so like Ronaldo I can't complain about getting a new card of the man for my small but growing soccer collection.

Here's another base Select card, this time featuring Mario Mandzukic of Croatia.  I remember him very well from the 2018 World Cup tournament, actually.

By contrast, you can see how much nicer the "Multi-Color" parallels are in the Select releases.  I wish they'd just make these the base cards and do away with the standard chrome-looking base they use today.  All the yellow and green here works well with that jersey.

Was really happy to see this card, probably my favorite of what I've shown here so far.  I'm not sure if it's fair to say he's under-rated, given that I think most die-hard soccer fans consider him maybe a top 20 player in the world, but Kevin De Bruyne has been an absolute stud for Manchester City in the Premier League for years now, and is a big reason for all of that club's recent success.  He's a lot of fun to watch.  Great card.

Here's my promised relic.  While I'm not familiar with Nacer Chadli of Belgium, as far as design goes this is a really gorgeous card.  If most modern baseball relics from Topps were this attractive and shiny, I might actually be excited to land one.

Each re-pack comes with an autographed card as well, in this case Santi Mina from the 2018-19 Museum Collection UEFA Champions League set.  Not very familiar with him either, given that he's spent his career to date almost entirely in Spain.  A couple of cool random additions to my soccer collection with these hits; even if they weren't names that rang a bell with me I can appreciate the designs.

Back to 2018 Donruss, this time with an Out of this World insert.  A pretty blatant and literal insert set here, with the player pictured in outer space.  Not doing much for me if I'm being honest, but getting some cards that don't excite you is just part of the re-pack experience.

Here's another insert from 2018 Donruss, Magicians.  In this case I'm unsure how the design ties in with the insert set name.  Moving on...

...to the final, and best card in the re-pack!  Landing a new Leo Messi card is always rewarding for this collector.  On top of that, I love shiny cards and die-cuts.  Easily my favorite card in this grouping.  I found out when adding this to my collection on TCDB that this is part of a 10-card die-cut insert set that exclusively features Messi on all ten cards.  I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for some of the others at some point, if I can find them for reasonable prices.

Well, that's a wrap on this particular re-pack.  Not quite as exciting as the first one I opened if I'm being brutally honest, but I did get a unique blend of releases and some big names to really bolster my very small soccer collection.  About all I can ask for from a $12 re-pack.

As I said, I've got one more of these on my pack shelf for a rainy day in the future.  Until then, thanks as always for stopping by!  I'll be back with something baseball-related tomorrow...