Pedro Gonçalves was one of the best young players of the year, in the 2019-20 season, playing really good football for the newly promoted Famalicão (they were top of the league, at one point). The Wolves reject scored 7 and assisted 7 in that year, in a year that saw him becoming the best young player of the Portuguese league and a place in the team of the season, leading Famalicão to a 6th place finish in the league.
Pedro Gonçalves (Famalicão): Golos e assistências 19/20
After that summer, Sporting decided to grab him for 13.5 M€. And boy how that turned out to be for Sporting – in the first season, 2020-21, his impact was felt right off the bat. He was responsible for 23 (!) goals and 3 assists in 37 games. He led the league in goals and he also led Sporting to a league title, the first one in 20 years. He won, once again, the prize for best young player of the year, and was present in the team of the season He gained the status of fan favorite after just one season in the club. And deserves all the credit.
Since then, he scored on 58 occasions and assisted 48 times, giving him a total of 81 goals and 51 assists (132 goal contributions (GC)) for Sporting in just 185 games for the club (0.7 GC/game), winning for Sporting, 2 portuguese league, 2 league cups and 1 super cup.
Here is one of his most iconic goal for Sporting
But now I’ve reached the point where I want to rant about you: we talk about sports cards and rookies in general, we tend to view the 1-3 year picture. You know, the usual ish, is “101 hobby economics” – you find a player that’s hot, you get his rookie, and you sell it when he moves to a bigger club, you make a quick buck. We tend to not think about 10-20 years in the future like some americans that I follow do for baseball, they often grab rookie cards of players they think will reach the Hall of Fame – making them immortal, so to speak.
Pedro’s rookie sticker is an extinct one. You can’t buy it online (Panini’s complete your album program, lets you buy the last missing stickers to complete an album), so, you either have to buy it from someone that owns them, or get it yourself in a pack. Packs are pretty rare to find nowadays and the chances to pack one are really low. Myself hasn’t packed one and I opened close to 150 packs, so you get where I’m going. You can only get it by buying it from someone that already has the sticker.
People, especially Sporting fans will want his sticker because of the impact he caused in the club. You have to think that, the kids that are seeing play today are the ones who will buy it in 10, 20, 30 years from now. They will have a memory attached to it/the player and will want to own one. I strongly believed that he’s one of the key pieces for the title runs he had, and he had not gone there, Sporting weren’t going to be league champions for another 10 years.
I compare him to club legends like Manuel Fernandes and Paulo Futre, Quaresma (and in some degree, Cristiano Ronaldo). So in 20-30 years, the demand for his rookie will be the same as the players I mentioned before.
Pedro Gonçalves Rookie Sticker #115 – 2019-20 Panini Futebol
Regarding cards, getting his rookie card auto will also be significant. The only downside I see to it, is the fact that his auto is present in 2 and third year products, so there are a lot around. Will affect the price, but once the collections are being made, cards are not leaving collections, I’m sure prices will increase.
Pedro Gonçalves Rookie Card Auto – 2021-22 Topps Finest
Will be nice to see how this will pan out in the long run. I can tell you, from my experience, autographs sell really well. I’ve done really well with regular sales in Portugal. The rookie sticker, I’ve sold plenty, but more in the early days of the hobby boom. At one point, the price people were asking in Portugal for that sticker was 10€. I’m glad I held down my horses, and only bought them after the peak (grabbed I think 10 in a 2000 sticker lot) and in 2022 bought 25 for dirt cheap.
And that’s it for this one! And for you, reader, you have to start to think like I am explaining to you here – outside the box is what wins nowadays, in this highly competitive market.
OHobby out!
