It might be time to scout some Chrome & Optic soccer sets

If you're a regular soccer fan, this may not be the deepest of item for you ... but if you're not?

Well, keep reading ...

With on-field action for sports around the world basically at a halt, the scouting of cards from around the world might be happening more here even though those events would be happening elsewhere. A simple glance at a piece from ESPN -- soccer's 36 best players age 21 or under -- and a quick look at eBay for just two names mentioned shows that there are probably some gems waiting to be found out there in boxes that are still very findable and don't break the bank compared to some high-end releases.

The Kylian Mbappe card you see up top? It's from a box of 2017-18 Topps Chrome UEFA Champions League -- a box that wasn't originally a scorcher price-wise and a box that can be loaded with color and Refactors. (Don't believe me? Click here.) There are 49 other copies just like that card and yet it for $6,999. (Seriously.) And it's not alone as Mbappe is pretty popular in most cardboard forms.  Flip to the completed auctions and you'll find almost 40 finished sales over the $1,000 mark -- and boxes some of these cards are found in aren't that pricey. (He's also found in other stuff -- scout all of the soccer brands you can grab right here.)

The Jadon Sancho card above is a little different as it's a 1/1 Optic parallel from 2018-19 Donruss Optic but there's still plenty of heat there as it sold for $3,750 on eBay. He, too, is popular with more than 30 completed auctions of singles and lots at $300 or more in recent months -- and they are not auto-mem cards. Asking prices on his Chrome rarities among active auctions are steep, too. (And all of this makes me wonder how many Buzz Box winners this year got any interesting Refactors as I loaded them up with plenty of numbered and colored Refractor cards from the pitch.)

That ESPN list is a meaty one with plenty of young talent to prospect -- perhaps a starting point for beginning collectors, too -- and these guys are likely not alone. One thing to consider with these releases is that fans elsewhere might not be able to easily grab boxes made here wherever they might live and that might spark some surprises selling singles. I'd also expect that, in some cases, print runs on these U.S.-based releases might have volumes that are a tiny sliver of the demand seen in other sports also with global appeal.

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