2003-04 Wizards of the Coast Italian Football Champions Calciomercato

When I get a chance to buy an old box of cards for a good price, I don’t let that opportunity slip very easy. Even though opening old boxes is usually less exciting then opening newer boxes, old cards remind me of the time when I started collecting first. I have to admit that I didn’t start with collecting football cards. I first got dragged into collecting NBA cards, it’s only quite recently that my interest shifted towards football cards.

Anyway, on my most recent trip to Beijing, I stumbled across a quite cheap, unopened box of 2003-04 Wizards of the Coast Italian Football Champions Calciomercato. I have to admit that I didn’t own any Football Champions cards up to that moment, so I thought that would be a good start.

Although ‘start’ might be not the most appropriate word as the Calciomercato set was the smaller expansion to a bigger base set.

The 2003-04 Calciomercato set consists of 138 cards of which 80 are player cards and 58 are action cards. The cards roughly have the same size as usual trading cards, but they are a little thinner and they have round edges. The front of the player cards show a picture of the player, his name, his team, his position, the season and the number of the card. The card also shows scores for certain skills, as the Football Champions sets were designed as playing sets, much like the Match Attax and Adrenalyn XL sets these days. The front of the action cards show an action photo from the Serie A and describe (in Italian) an action that could be used when playing the game. The back of the cards just shows the logo of the set. Play cards have a blue back, action cards have a green one.

A full box of the 2003-04 Calciomercato set has no less than 36 packets in it, and each packet consists of 7 cards: 5 player cards and 2 action cards. A box contains 252 cards in total: 180 player cards and 72 action cards. So I was guaranteed heaps of doubles.

Much of the attraction of the Football Champions sets comes from the fact that the cards of the stars are foiled. In this Calciomercato set, these premium cards come on average in 1 in 3 packets, and I did indeed pull 12 of them.

‘Unfortunately’ no less than 30 of the 80 player cards in this set are foiled. Apart from the fact that I think that is a little too much if you want to distinguish the stars from the more average players, it left me 18 (foiled) cards short of the complete players set.

Each of the 50 normal player cards I pulled at least twice, some cards even five times.

I can’t say that the action cards really appeal to me, but I was still a little disappointed that I ended up 4 cards short of the complete set of 58, especially because 18 action cards were twice in the box.

This box was clearly designed for retail, with such an excessive amount of cards in one box of such a small set. In that respect, Wizards of the Coast still did a good thing in providing 12 different premium cards.

All in all, this box break was quite fun, but only because the foiled cards made it interesting until the very end, as the rest of the set was already complete when half of the packages were opened.

Report

1) Set

Season: 2003-04

Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast

Competition: Serie A (Italy)

Set name: Football Champions Calciomercato

Number of cards in set:  138 in total, consisting of 80 player cards (50 normal cards + 30 foiled premium cards) and 58 action cards

2) Box

1 box = 36 packets

1 packet = 7 cards (5 player cards + 2 action cards)

1 box = 252 cards (180 player cards + 72 action cards)

Inserts: Foiled premium cards (1:3 packets), so box should contain 12.

Cost: CNY 220 (EUR 26.7/USD 36.1/GBP 22.4)

3) Box break

Total number of cards: 252 cards (180 player cards + 72 action cards), as promised.

Total number of inserts: 12 (different) foiled premium cards, as promised.

Set completion: 84% (116/138 cards)

Different cards: 116 cards (62 player cards + 54 action cards)
Doubles: 136 cards (118 player cards + 18 action cards)
 

Probably most expensive card: #37 Ricardo Kaka (AC Milan) (Foiled)

Most happy with: #39 Manuel Rui Costa (AC Milan) (Foiled)

Go after complete set? Worth the effort with only 22 cards missing, although the foiled cards sell not that cheap.

Satisfaction rate: 75%