THE FIRST CHAPTERS
Football rookie cards
Every story has a first card. Discover each player’s first year in our catalogue.
Every card from their first recorded year, across all collections. Filters narrow the results without recalculating that year.
Justin Bijlow
Netherlands · 2022BaseNiko Kranjčar
Croatia · 2006BaseLogan Costa
Villarreal CF · 2024-25BaseJaime Penedo
Panama · 2018BaseGuillermo Franco
Mexico · 2006BaseLukas Hinterseer
Austria · 2016BaseRichard Ríos
SL Benfica · 2025-26Veterans And RookiesDemy de Zeeuw
Netherlands · 2008BaseLasse Schöne
Denmark · 2012BaseMiguel Trauco
Peru · 2018BaseMohammad Khalatbari
Iran · 2014BaseCharles Petro
FC Sheriff · 2021-22BaseDani Lorenzo
Málaga CF · 2026-27LaLigaIbrahim Bavesh
Iraq · 2026BaseGábor Király
Hungary · 2016BaseJeremy Antonisse
Curaçao · 2026BaseCurtis Jones
Liverpool · 2020-21Uefa Champions League Match Attax 2020/21 - Rising StarAbdallah El Said
Egypt · 2018BaseCaleb Yirenkyi
Ghana · 2026BaseKhuliso Mudau
South Africa · 2026BaseIvan Tričkovski
APOEL FC · 2011-12BaseSamuel Adekugbe
Canada · 2022BaseMarco Amelia
Italy · 2008BaseHow to find a footballer’s first cards
Find a player and compare their first cards across collections. Filter by publisher, season, team, category and language, view photographs and save the cards you like to your wishlist.
Which cards appear here?
We show individual player cards with a known year. If a player’s first recorded year is 2010, all their 2010 cards and stickers appear, including variants and languages, across the available collections.
Is this the same as an RC logo?
No. Rookie here means the first year recorded in Trading Cards Tracker. We do not certify that this is their first published card or that it carries an official RC logo. Check the edition and its sources for each card.
Can the first year change?
Yes. Adding or correcting an earlier card updates the results. We use the card’s year, not the date it was added to the website or the end of a season. Cards without a year and multi-player cards are excluded from this calculation.
How is each player identified?
We group by the recorded name, normalising accents, spaces and letter case. We do not merge nicknames or different names based on similarity. Aliases and namesakes may need review: check the player, team and collection.