We all know the advantages of the Select brand. It offers a colorful chrome take with levels of rarity. Either you love it or hate it, and most people are fans.
Therefore, it provides one of the best opportunities to collect Italian soccer cards. Indeed, there aren’t many options to do so at all.
But does this product offer value, and does the Select brand translate correctly into soccer and the top Italian league? Read our 2023-24 Panini Select Serie A review to find out.
Select first appeared as a release for Pinnacle in the 1990s. They had a product called Select Certified Football on the books for a few years. The cards were gorgeous and fondly remembered. However, the product fell out of favor and was discontinued in the late 1990s.
But have no fear. Panini brought it back in 2013. The first product of the return was the 2013 Panini Select Football. It has remained trendy for its football releases, though its move to basketball was also quite successful.
Select moved to soccer in 2015 and has tried different releases for the “beautiful game” since. Before tackling Italy, Panini released a Premier League and La Liga version of Select.
Panini Select Serie A first appeared in 2021-22 as a massive product with 250 cards, many featuring all the traditional levels: Concourse, Premier Level, Club Level, Suite Level, and Field Level.
It appeared again in 2022-23, featuring only three Select levels: Terrace, Mezzanine, and Field Level subsets. However, the checklist remained 250 long.
While Panini Select Serie A is not among the best-known soccer releases in the Panini catalog, it has a reliable market. There aren’t many annual Serie A products, and Select provides an attractive option.
The 2023-24 product will be released on May 15, 2024. Of course, that is very late in the soccer season. The relevant Serie A season ends on Sunday, May 26, 2024.
The product is relatively new and has only appeared in the era of super late releases. Therefore, fans have had to get used to these unfortunately timed drops.
The Panini Select Serie A has traditionally been a hobby-only release, aside from the occasional T-Mall release — like last year. It appears that this year will not be an exception.
However, we will keep a look out for other formats, like the T-Mall or FOTL box. Here are the stats for the only release format.
The three levels of rarity schtick are very successful. It has several older precedents in the hobby, including a gold level and regular and similar formulations.
However, Select’s division of its cards into the Terrace level, which is the most common level of all, the middle Mezzanine level, and the rarest Field Level, has been prevalent.
This works because boxes have many cards with low numbers on the more exclusive level. That makes busting a box of these a lot of fun.
Another great advantage of the Select product line is the Stained Glass inserts. Those tend to be some of the best-looking inserts, and the right one can fetch a reasonable price on the market. They are also particularly conducive to Italian players since Gothic is heavily associated with Italian history and culture.
They tend to be the most stylish players, and these are some of the most elegant cards. So when you look at the stained glass from previous years, such as the Paolo Maldini ones, they are among the best produced.
The other case hits, like Artistic Impressions, Team Badge, and Visionary, are also pretty good. But, of course, it’s not in the same league as Stained Glass.
The Serie A cards generally don’t get the love they deserve in the hobby. The soccer market, in general, has not grown as expected. Meanwhile, in popularity, Serie A has languished far behind the European Champions League, the Premier League, and even La Liga.
It probably has an edge over the Bundesliga. That is a sad state of affairs when you consider that 20 years ago, it was easily considered the best league in Europe. Therefore, the cache of these cards has suffered accordingly.
In addition, it’s hard to remember the last genuinely world-beating rookie to emerge from the Serie A.
Even though Italy continues to be very successful in international tournaments, for example, winning the UEFA Euro 2020 competition, they haven’t produced any massive global stars since the days of Francesco Totti, Gianluigi Buffon, and Alessandro Del Piero.
The more limited budgets of the Serie A teams in recent years also mean they haven’t been able to afford the most prominent stars or get them when they are no longer in their prime, like in the case of Cristiano Ronaldo going to Juventus in 2018.
That could change since some good young players are coming up there, like Mateo Retegui. But the chances of them becoming massively bankable commodities don’t seem all that high.
We don’t have the checklist for this product yet, so it can be hard to tell if this year’s rookies will be any good.
We can expect a Mateo Retegui RC because one appears in the Panini mock-up. That is undoubtedly the one to chase. Mateo is an Argentine-born player who has recently changed his international allegiance to Italy. During his 2022-23 loan to Tigre in the Argentinean league, he was sensational, scoring 30 goals in 48 games.
This season, he has performed well for Genoa and has begun to feature regularly on the Italian national team. His 4 goals in 6 games have been awe-inspiring. He is the kind of modern, complete striker who blossoms in the contemporary, fast-paced match.
Therefore, Retegui stands a good chance of being one of the most outstanding revelations in Euro 2024.
The checklist for this product is relatively large. It includes 250 cards, divided into the three sections mentioned above: Terrace, Mezzanine, and Field Level.
We don’t know what parallels will be included in the 2023-24 edition of the product yet. But here is the lineup from 2022-23:
Terrace, Mezzanine, and Field Level:
Select is not the top of the line for inserts. In my opinion, that goes to the lineup that Donruss presents. Nonetheless, it is an excellent selection.
The top of the line for Select are the Stained Glass inserts. Of course, these are case hits, so it can be hard to hit one. But the right one can be amazing with the Italian connection in mind.
Also, because Serie A Select is not as popular as other releases from this line, buying can be cheaper. Indeed, it tends to be worth less than $50. So, if you like them, spring for a couple.
They may even increase in value eventually. After all, the print run for these cards is shallow. Under 20, according to most estimates.
The checklist is not out yet, so we don’t know if it will be good for this release. But if previous years are anything to go by, the retired players provide the most bang for your buck.
In 2022-23, the names included Cristiano Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Gianluigi Buffon, Kaka, and Cafu. So it was about as good as you can get.
What we know is that autos come in Autographed Memorabilia, Pitchside Signatures, and Select Signatures varieties.
The memorabilia selection was notably weaker in its first two years than the autos. We cannot say that that problem will repeat this time, but it is worth watching.
There isn’t a massive market for Serie A cards. However, because the print run is relatively low, there is a floor for the wax here—or at least you would expect there to be. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Unfortunately, these boxes have a very small sample size. Only two previous years of this product are extant. Nonetheless, let’s see what we can learn from them.
| 2021-22 Panini Select Serie A Hobby Box | Unavailable |
| 2022-23 Panini Select Serie A Hobby Box | $359.95 |
I couldn’t even find a box for sale for the first year of this release. That certainly bodes well for its value, though I have no idea what it would go for if you have one. Meanwhile, the second-year box goes for well over the price of a brand-new one.
Here, you have the paradox of the niche product. Not many people want it; therefore, not many copies are printed. But because of that, there is a low population count, which raises the value. Don’t you love the free market?
As we saw, the Stained Glass cards for this release leave much to be desired regarding their value. Does that mean that none of the cards in this release go for a decent amount of money? Let’s take a look at the most recent sales from this release.
We finally found a good value stained glass from this product! This list is illuminating. When Serie A has a player the market is fond of, Cristiano Ronaldo or the other Ronaldo, the cards can have some excellent value.
That means some of these veteran autos are a good investment. So what keeps the Serie A Select cards from being high value is that the Italian league has had trouble producing top-notch rookies. It is not because soccer fans don’t like the release. Indeed, the prices of singles AND boxes would suggest otherwise.
We don’t have a lot of years to compare Panini Select Serie A and ascertain its value. The first year of release was quite limited and was hard to find. It was only in 2022-23 that we saw a genuine wide release. But we can learn from that anyway.
It appears that soccer fans like the Select brand and are happy to invest in Serie A. The low population of this release helps keep up the value of the boxes.
The one thing stopping Panini Select Serie A from realizing its potential is the lack of recognizable rookies in recent years. While Serie A is a bit weaker than it was in previous years, there is no reason to assume that will continue to be the case.
We aren’t sure that Mateo Retegui and the current crop will break that hex. But with Italy set to contend for more global titles in Euro 2024, the 2026 World Cup, and beyond, we can expect players from this league to gain international recognition.
In the meantime, the low population makes this a worthwhile investment for Italian soccer fans. So, by all means, if Italian soccer is your thing, jump into 2023-24 Serie A Select head first. You might even make some money while you are at it.
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