How to play — Soccer

You are picking a full eleven, and the pool spans leagues that grew up entirely separately. An all-time XI here can draw from three countries at once — something no real domestic season could ever assemble.

The board

11 seats: LB · CB1 · CB2 · RB · GK · LW · RW · CAM · CM · CDM · FLEX. A complete XI: a keeper, a back four, a midfield and the front line. There is no substitute bench to rescue a weak choice, and the spine — keeper and centre-backs — is what actually survives a long season rather than the names in attack.

The rounds

Each round opens one club or national side in one era. Because the record begins in 1929 across competitions that never met, the eleven you finish with is usually a side that could not have existed.

The season

38 games — 38–0 for the sweep. Thirty-eight matches, no playoffs, and no draws allowed. That last part is the whole difficulty: a draw is the ordinary football result, so an unbeaten run is common enough to have a name while a perfect one has never happened.

• 38–0 — the perfect season.
• 35 wins or more — the top tier.
• 29 or more — a strong finish.
• 26 or more — you made the cut.
• 15 or more — middling.
• the rest — the roast comes with the verdict.

What the record holds

The record opens in 1929 and spans leagues that grew up entirely separately, which makes it the widest pool on the site. Soccer keeps no hall of fame at all, so there is no membership list behind these cards — what a player won and was selected for IS the account, and the board carries clubs and national sides alike.

What decides it

Soccer keeps no hall of fame, so what a player won and was selected for IS the record of how good they were held to be — Team of the Year, World XI, and the competitions themselves. How the ratings work · the full rulebook.

Take a soccer board The soccer game