Football Champions was a soccer-themed collectible card game produced by Wizards of the Coast and released in November 2001, timed to the 2001-02 European football season. Despite the publisher's deep roots in CCG design, Football Champions was positioned as a collectible product tied to real-world league rosters rather than a competitive tournament game in the Magic: The Gathering mould.
The first set covered the English Premier League and was available across multiple countries. It contained 250 numbered player cards plus tactical insert cards, with foil parallels falling approximately one in three packs. Regional editions covered additional leagues including Ligue 1 in France and Serie A in Italy, and the product line continued for several seasons, with Italian editions reportedly running for the longest. Cards depicted real players from clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United. The game never achieved mainstream CCG status but attracted collectors of football ephemera, and surviving sealed product from the 2001-02 run remains findable on the secondary market.
Source: cartophilic-info-exch.blogspot.com/2015/03/wizards-of-coast-football-champions.html