2016-17 Panini/Sega WCCF (World Club Championship Football) Version 2.0 #AO35 Christian Pulisic

​​

​The Panini/Sega WCCF (World Club Champion Football) trading card game (TCG) debuted in 2002. The first set, World Club Champion Football: Serie A 2001-2002, was released that year in Japan, combining physical trading cards made by Panini with an arcade soccer simulation game made by Sega where the physical player cards owned by a “manager” (a player of the arcade game) would serve as the basis of their team in the arcade game.  Initially released only in Japan, the game was introduced to Europe in 2005, but high European licensing fees led to the discontinuation of new products for the European market shortly after and the subsequent discontinuation of service of European arcades.  New editions of the product featuring teams from around the world continued to be released in Japan (and in some instances China) through a 2021-22 product (with the product rebranded as WCCF Footista in 2019 with various changes) but the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the ability to play arcade games led to the end of WCCF, with Sega announcing in 2021 that service of the arcade games would be discontinued on April 1, 2022.  During the 20-year run of WCCF, the game was highly popular, with over a billion cards sold across all sets.  

 

During Christian Pulisic’s 2016-17 rookie year he had two WCCF arcade cards: 2016-17 Panini/Sega WCCF (World Club Championship Football) Version 2.0 #AO35 and 2016-17 Panini/Sega WCCF (World Club Championship Football) Version 3.0 #A14.  Both of these cards were only issued in Japan, and technically only made available throuh packs in the arcades that featured the physical arcade game.  Starter packs could be purchased that included enough cards for a team in the arcade game and a digital card that would store the owner’s details and history for subsequent games, and each arcade game played would entitle the “manager” to an extra one-card pack from the arcade (though sealed boxes of these one-card packs were marked “not for sale” on the outside of the box, arcade employees and/or others still facilitated the re-sale of these boxes online).  Version 2.0 was effectively a 126-card update set to the 389-card base set, and version 3.0 was effectively a further 46-card update set.

​

If viewing Christian Pulisic’s 2016-17 Panini/Sega WCCF (World Club Championship Football) Version 2.0 #AO35 card, the numbering on the bottom left corner of the card is stated as “A035/126”; this numbering convention is stating that this is card 35 of the 126-card version 2 update set.  The card is a difficult grade, owing to the black borders on the back of the card easily showing edge and corner wear, and owing to the fact some cards in the population were used in the physical arcade game.  As of January 2026, 93 copies of the card have been graded by PSA, with 17 of these copies graded PSA 10.  Eight have been graded by SGC, with three graded 9.5 and none graded 10.  Two have been graded by BGS, with the highest grade being one 9.  Nine have been graded by CGC with one gem mint 10 grade and no 9.5 grades.