This set was indeed issued in July 2017, and its claim to fame is that it is Kylian Mbappe`s "Rookie" card, as well as the fact that his is the only "Rookie" in the entire set - at least at the moment, but you will have to read on to find out more about that.
Kylian Mbappe Lottin was born on the 20th of December 1998, in Paris to a sporting family, his father, Wilfrid, being a football coach and his mother, who is also his agent, being a handball player. This rubbed off on to his younger brother and adopted older brother, and they were also football stars.
Strangely, our man does not seem to have played for any team before he joined the second team of Association Sportive de Monaco Football Club in 2015. We have not yet found him on any squad cards with the Monaco team, but if we did that would be very exciting, as it would alter his "Rookie" card.. Not long after that he was playing for both their second and first teams.
Two years later they loaned him to Paris St. Germain, which is where he was playing when this card was released, and in 2018 that team signed him up, for a reputed sum of a hundred and eighty million euros. I`m not entirely sure that figure can ever be justified with so many people in need of the basics just to keep alive, but he did become became their all-time top goalscorer, scoring two hundred and fifty six times.
In 2017 he also made his first appearance for the French International team, and at the 2018 World Cup Final he became only the second teenager to score a goal at that stage of the contest. The other, of course, was Pele.
In 2024, he joined Real Madrid Club de Futbol, on a free transfer, and he remains there today.
This set was originally advertised as being available at hobby stores in May 2018, but it did not arrive until July the 20th.
There are several sets of inserts, and four sets of parallel cards, which are the same as ours but have different colours on the inner frames where our card is blue. The other colours are Emerald, Gold, Ruby and Sapphire, the last of which leads to a bit of confusion, because that is also a blue, but it is much shinier. And also the cards have prefixes before their numbers, Emerald`s being SN1, Gold`s SN50, Ruby`s SN25, and Sapphire`s SN75