I wonder what it looked like, since there is no picture!

Ah, I just dug this set up from my basement and properly stored it away after not seeing it for a solid 15 or so years! I never was really big on soccer (or futbol), but I enjoyed playing with this set alongside a few of the other sets from this line!

@Murdoch17 said:
"I wonder what it looked like, since there is no picture!"

Check again. Down. To the right. Bingo!

Or should I say goal...? Nope I shouldn’t —stupid awful pun I apologize it makes me cringe.

Who is the player on the left? Was it part of the contract for him to be depicted equally with the product his likeness is advertising?

This reminded me to take this one out of my owned sets. I had it in storage a while back and forgot to pay the bill. Oh well, it was a fun set. The thing I really miss are the white windshields.

I still have this set in its box under my bed. One of the only 2000s LEGO boxes I had the foresight to keep considering I was only 8 at the time, albeit not in pristine condition, but not that badly damaged either (another being 6776).

It's great-looking and great fun, though the goal nets are incredibly annoying to set up properly and I sucked at controlling the goalies. I loved the ability to customize the field to whatever shape and formations you wanted, as well as expand it though I never got any 3410 to try that with. I did have 3408 Super Sports Coverage (called Main Entrance with Ground Staff in my catalog IIRC) and one of the 3403 grandstands, but not the one with lights, and even though it was pitifully incomplete with just one 3403, having a place at all for fans to sit, watch and cheer and to physically keep score was far better than nothing and greatly added to the play experience.

@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Did Zidane still have hair in 2000?
I'm not a football/soccer fan at all, so I'm rather proud of myself for recognizing a player from 20 years ago. (that is him, isn't it?)"
Correct, this theme was developed in partnership with him.

I had this one (still have it but I keep old LEGO seperate) , main downside is that the minifigure's legs won't stick to regular studs anymore after being on those special stands for a long time (years).

My version came with the Dutch Soccer team (generic set of extra unprinted orange torso/white legs figs , Orange was a fairly new/rare color back then in 2000) , Euro 2000 was also organized by the Netherlands/Belgium that year.

I can see where LEGO got their inspiration for the new City road "modules" , as it isn't that different from those field sections in style, just 1 plate lower and no bowls of course.

Since this is 3 plates high, there's hollow room to add 2x4 plates on the bottom for extra strength because the 2x2 tiles on top holding the field sections aren't that strong when lifting the field up as a whole when moving it.

Also the goals are pretty fragile and the corner flags fall over easily.

Another cool thing were the suggestions to turn it into larger field, or a 4 -player game, with multiple sets, or a training/obstacle course in the instructions.

As for referee, I used to use a figure with a checkered racing flag on the side , imagination.

@ElephantKnight said:
"This is actually quite fun to play, and at least one Lego convention I have gone to (BrickCan, in Vancouver, BC) has an actual championship.

Some nice white parts for Blacktron, and I used those giant green soccer field parts on the interior of my Blacktron Dalek. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/31780766 @N06/albums/72157632527296142) It's about the only use I have had for those parts. I guess I could make one giant soccer field, though..."

Wow, that darlek is awesome. I hope you still have it build, it'd be a shame to disassemble something like that.

I got this handed to me from my cousin. He was a football fan, I wasn't but anything Lego is good with me. He had all the stands, lights and some of the extra crew sets to go with it.

So fun to play, along with the later Sports set. I really hope Lego reboot the theme at some point soon.

I always wanted to get my hands on one of these, 'cause they look super fun to play with.

Waddaya know, Hidden Side and Vidiyo weren't the only themes to suffer from "what's actually in this box?" syndrome!

@Monopoly said:
" @Vladtheb said:
"I had two copies of this set for some reason as a kid. No idea why, I’m not even a soccer fan."
Huh, me too. Though admittedly one of them was the weird limited edition French version ( 3420-3 ). I didn’t even know what that one was at the time, so I just called the French players the ‘Chicken Boys’ because of the giant golden chickens on their torsos."

Wow, player 2 really has a horrible face. Lego got weird at some period.

@TheOtherMike said:
"This reminded me to take this one out of my owned sets. I had it in storage a while back and forgot to pay the bill."
This I find highly interesting. (Not the set, but the above comment.)

I love to watch shows like "Storage Wars" but I always ask myself "who on earth forgets to pay their bills for their storage rooms?"
Now I know at least one person. ;-)

Maybe it’s because I’m not a football fan but I always thought this was a weird theme for Lego to dip into. At least the players here aren’t warped mutants like they made the basketball players

Zidane! One of my childhood heroes, I don’t own the set itself but I bought the Zidane minifig off Bricklink because it was always so cool to me that there is a LEGO version of him

Aha, Huwbot is a Glasgow Rangers supporter, why else would he have a football set the day after they won the league! :)

I always have been fan of Sports sets. Mainly because the engineering behind them. I have many of them and, although football is quite funny to play, you can not compare with basketball. They are an example of smart engineering, with the springs in the legs and modified arms to pickup the ball.

I always encourage people to buy a basketball training set, just to test it. Its much more funny than football, and than you could expect. Same with snowboard sets. Some light on the dark era of LEGO

I’ve never enjoyed sports in general, but these stadium sets are quite impressive.

What an odd image.

Found this in a job lot I purchased, some time ago. Was surprised when I found it was complete, with even the balls, and actually quite cool. This is from someone who is not even remotely interested in football!

Found some more photos at https://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/sports/soccer/lego-3409-1-championship-challenge/ . Seems very difficult to play as the players appear to be stuck with a pin and can only pivot back and forth limiting their reach of the ball, with the more freer goal keepers doing all the work? Possibly this is what has kept the price to around $50 in the US secondary market?

@AustinPowers:
I know someone who had to sell off three storage units worth of hobby trains after his brother used the money he should have spent on his heart medicine to pay the rent. And the next year, he was selling off the contents of a fourth unit that they didn’t find out about until later. So, right there you have two major reasons. The original renter could run out of money and simply not have the space to transfer everything (especially if they’ve also been evicted), or not really care much about what’s left in storage, or end up in a situation where they’re incapable of making payments (like jail). And if the renter passes away or ends up in a coma, the relatives may not even be aware that there’s a storage unit being rented.

I actually recently bought 3425 US National Team Cup Edition for $5 on a local selling app it didn’t have a box and was only missing a flag and a wall piece.
It’s surprisingly really fun to play and works great.

I had the little brother of the remake of this set: 3421. Like others above, I've never even remotely been a football fan, but I thought the Lego version looked like a fun game, regardless. Barely ever used the actual football players to play it, though: I took a leaf out of the book of the Football Mania video game and used teams from other groups of minifigures - e.g. Adventurers, Knights, Rock Raiders, Jedi - in their place.

Also: *shudders at the sight of those stickers*. The ones on the billboards around the field, I mean: they were the kind of awful, flaking ones; most of the similar stickers on my set were well on their way to crumbling to dust after a few years, and that was without even having seen a lot of heavy use.

It surprised me, the above comment that the goalkeepers couldn't move up and down, since they could just fine on the set I had: then I looked closer and realised they're attached differently on these sets than the 2002 ones. The later ones had a special piece that let them tilt up and down as well - the same piece that was later used in 7257 Ultimate Lightsaber Duel - and I didn't realise that part had been newly introduced for the 2002 wave.

On another note: yes, this is one of those sets where Sparks, originally of Rock Raiders, was playing goalkeeper for two opposing teams *at the same time*!

@PurpleDave: thanks for the heads up.
I never thought about it that way.
Then again, over here such storage units are not much of a thing, so the whole concept seems a bit alien.

It's neat that this is the RSOTD, as I've been binge-watching my "goals of the world cup" videos for the past few days!

It seems like half of the retail price is the endorsement fee for one of the best players in the world (at the time) to be prominently displayed on the box.

It would have been interesting to relaunch this set in 2006 and use his head-butting image from the world cup finals that year...

@Murdoch17 said:
"I wonder what it looked like, since there is no picture!" there is a picture, but it’s best to ignore it.

This is one of those sets that LEGO fans are born with knowledge of, it has always existed and will be the last thing to perish from the earth, the crooked advertisements still clinging to the white 2x6 windshields as they drift through empty space for eternity...

I kid, but for some reason I feel like I always had this set in the back of my mind, "oh yeah, that piece is from the LEGO soccer field." The basebricks and minifig stands are really unique and I guess once I knew where they originated from those pieces started turning up everywhere. I buy bulk LEGO quite often and those white windshields turn up all the time.

And here's the part statistics:

Unique:
72824 soccer ball with blue Adidas print in white x1

Rare:
8x16 net in black thread x2

According to Rebrickable there are four alternate inventories (with possibility of an unconfirmed 5th), but they all contain these two pieces in common and none of the alternate parts are rare or unique.

@LuvsLEGO_Cool_J said:
"Ha, I own this one and the scoreboard set. I bought it when first released because it was so unique and it reminded me of the table soccer/football game Subbuteo with field, goals, and figurines . Anybody knows of that hobby?"

Subbuteo was a pretty big game here in Italy way back from the 70's to this day and from time to time ol' timers like me and my friends still get a kick (!) out of it. It was very difficult to play it well, and some people were really good at it, with tournaments and all.

Speaking of 3409 I wish I hadn't missed out on this set. I would have loved to try it out, but I must have been smack in the middle of my dark ages when it came out, since I'm reading about it here for the first time.

This was my first lego soccer set! One of the coolest sets around.

My boys had hours of fun with this set. It's still put together and stored in a tote for easy retrieval. We have some of the other ancillary sets to have more players to choose from.

@PaulRevere said:
"Isnt Lego rebooting the Sports theme? Would be so curious to see how this set could be redone in 2021."

They have Old Trafford already, and I read somewhere that another one is coming up, maybe Camp Nou.
I like the basketball sets from the '00s.

Constantly coming across soccer sets in my used bulk purchases. I even found one small set still boxed.

My brother had this set when we were younger and so the pieces made their way into my bulk lego collection. They stick out like a sore thumb. The chunks of field, the white windshields (stickers disintegrated long ago), numerous jerseys, the weird player stands. However I have lost too many of them to fully recreate. I did love using those unique pieces as a kid. The soccer balls obviously had great use in my little MOC city scenes. For some reason I thought those windshields made great shelving units when stacked on top of each other, so those got a ton of use too.

@ambr said:
"Found some more photos at https://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/sports/soccer/lego-3409-1-championship-challenge/ . Seems very difficult to play as the players appear to be stuck with a pin and can only pivot back and forth limiting their reach of the ball, with the more freer goal keepers doing all the work? Possibly this is what has kept the price to around $50 in the US secondary market?"
It's easier to think of this as less of a traditional soccer game and more of stationary player figures punting the ball around the field. The 8x16 plates are not completely level except at the 2x2 tile connection points so the ball does roll towards players most of the time, only rarely stalling on the 2x2 tiles. The goalies are by no means the ones "doing all the work".

@PurpleDave said:
"Hey, it's "Kicking a Ball and Pretending to Be Hurt"!"

come here and say that too my face!!! ;)

@Samdas:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4738944/?ref_=m_ttep_ep_ep41

Nobody seems to be cool enough to have caught the reference anyways...

@Galaxy12_Import said:
"This is one of those sets that LEGO fans are born with knowledge of, it has always existed and will be the last thing to perish from the earth, the crooked advertisements still clinging to the white 2x6 windshields as they drift through empty space for eternity...

I kid, but for some reason I feel like I always had this set in the back of my mind, "oh yeah, that piece is from the LEGO soccer field." The basebricks and minifig stands are really unique and I guess once I knew where they originated from those pieces started turning up everywhere. I buy bulk LEGO quite often and those white windshields turn up all the time.

And here's the part statistics:

Unique:
72824 soccer ball with blue Adidas print in white x1

Rare:
8x16 net in black thread x2

According to Rebrickable there are four alternate inventories (with possibility of an unconfirmed 5th), but they all contain these two pieces in common and none of the alternate parts are rare or unique."

Yeah, this soccer field and its add-on sets (especially the buses) follow me around whenever I buy used LEGO, I probably have at least 4 of these things in my collection; it's just one of those super common sets I guess (along with 7111 and 5925)

Also friends of mine have a ton of these; when they went on clearance back in the day they were a good source of minifigs to populate buildings and train cars with