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Soccer Cards

Cardboard Soccer, Part 4: New cards, old problems

2026 Topps Chrome MLS is out, with some new features - but some of the same problems that cards everywhere have always had.

Jon Marthaler

Jon Marthaler

ā€” 7 min read
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Cardboard Soccer, Part 4: New cards, old problems
The design of 2026 Topps Chrome MLS.

I'm not sure there was ever a true golden era of sports cards, in terms of cost, because cards have no intrinsic value. Even when we were paying 35 cents a pack for baseball cards, all you got was cardboard pictures of baseball players, and a surprisingly good use for old Velveeta cheese boxes*.

*If you had the purpose-built cardboard card storage boxes as a kid, I hope you really appreciated the brand-new car your parents bought for you on your 16th birthday.

From a card perspective, there's a lot to talk about with what may end up being the only true MLS card release of the year, 2026 Topps Chrome MLS. But there's no way to talk about it without also talking about the insane cost, the worst thing about cards in 2026.

šŸ’”
This is the fourth and final post in an ongoing series on soccer cards. Part 1 laid out the history of modern cards, part 2 covered investing vs. collecting (and which makes actual sense), and part 3 looked at the history of Topps MLS cards. Now that this year's set has been released, soccer card coverage can take a bit of a backseat for awhile. This series is free to read - just create an account.

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