Soccer Rookie Cards to Watch Before the 2026 World Cup

A World Cup on North American soil in 2026 puts soccer cards in front of a much bigger audience. That matters. Big tournaments pull casual money into the hobby, and the players who carry them on the field carry their cards with them. The smart move is to know the price ladder before the crowd shows up, not after. So let me walk through the names that already have one.

The wonderkids with real demand

Lamine Yamal is the headline. He is barely out of his teens and already the most expensive young soccer name in the modern catalog. His 2023 Topps Chrome UEFA Club rookie trades around $30 raw and pushes near $488 in a PSA 10. His 2024 Topps Chrome Wonderkids sits closer to $133 in a 10. Those are not lottery-ticket prices anymore. They are conviction prices, and the market set them well before this World Cup cycle.

Estevao Willian is the next tier down and far more accessible. The base 2025 Topps Chrome UEFA runs about a dollar and a half raw and roughly $38 in a PSA 10. Step to the Refractor and you are near $15 raw, about $150 in a 10. Same card, same year. The only difference is scarcity, and the market prices it at four times the base. That gap is the whole reason to learn the parallel ladder on a young player.

Midfielders flying under the radar

Nico Paz is the kind of name most collectors have not priced in yet. His base 2024 Topps UEFA rookie is about a dollar raw. Cheap and liquid. But look at what a colored parallel does on the same player: his 2023 Topps Chrome UEFA Club Yellow Sapphire runs around $708 in a PSA 10. One player, two cards, a 700x spread between the floor and the ceiling. If Paz has a strong tournament, the cheap base is your entry and the scarce parallels are where the upside lives.

Arda Guler sits in similar territory. His 2023 Topps Pristine Road to Euro 2024 Refractor trades near $88 in a PSA 10, and his early 2022 Topps Now card runs about $50 in a 10. These are not headline numbers. They are sleeper numbers, which is exactly the point with a midfielder whose value rides on how far Turkey and Real Madrid go.

Established young stars with a track record

Jamal Musiala has already built a price history, and it rewards the right version of the card. His base 2020 Topps Chrome UEFA rookie is cheap, but the 2025 Topps Chrome UEFA Black Geometric Refractor runs close to $295 in a PSA 10. His 2020 Sapphire parallel sits near $17 raw. The pattern repeats on every one of these players. The base stays affordable, the numbered and colored parallels carry the money.

Jude Bellingham is the same story with more name recognition behind it. His 2020 Topps Chrome Bundesliga Sapphire rookie trades around $21 raw and about $120 in a PSA 10. He is already a Real Madrid centerpiece, so his cards do not need a breakout to hold. They need him to stay on the biggest stage, which he will be.

The grails that set the ceiling

It helps to know what the top of this market looks like, because it frames everything below. A 2004 Panini Sports Mega Cracks Lionel Messi rookie runs over $8,900 in a PSA 10, and his rarer #35 from that same set pushes past $10,000 in a 10. A raw copy of the #71 Messi has traded north of $3,000. Cristiano Ronaldo cards from the modern era are far more common and far cheaper, with a 2021 Topps Chrome UEFA base around $94 in a PSA 10. The two biggest names in the sport sit at very different price points, and that is worth understanding before you chase either one.

How to actually play it

Pick players getting real minutes for big clubs, not just names in the headlines. Buy the cheap, liquid base of a young star as your lottery ticket, and save the conviction money for one scarce parallel or autograph of a player you truly believe in. Check the pop report before you pay a premium, and line every purchase up against recent sold comps on eBay so you know the slab is worth what the seller wants. The World Cup will pull plenty of new buyers in. Knowing the ladder ahead of them is the edge.