Building an all-time club XI

What All Time XI mode is

In the standard draft, every spin can land on any club from any season. All Time XI narrows the pool to a club's entire history, merging every era into one squad of legends. Suddenly a 1990s talisman, a 2000s icon and a present-day star are all available for the same shirt — you are picking the definitive eleven from decades of talent.

It changes the feel of the game completely. There is no luck of the wheel deciding which clubs you see; instead you are wrestling with a club's actual strengths and gaps across its whole story.

Why one club plays differently

Every famous club is lopsided in its own way. Some have produced a conveyor belt of forwards and creators but far fewer truly elite defenders. Others were built for a generation on a back line and a goalkeeper, with the goals coming from good-not-great attackers. The single most important thing you can do in this mode is work out, before you start drafting, where your chosen club is deep and where it is thin.

Map the spine first

The spine principle from the main game applies here too, just with a single club's history instead of the whole league:

• Goalkeeper — many clubs have one obvious all-time keeper. Lock him in and the position is solved.
• Centre-backs — this is where club depth varies most. Identify your two best early.
• Central midfield — the engine rewards control through the middle; do not leave it to leftovers.
• Striker — usually a club's deepest position, so you can afford to settle it slightly later.

By claiming the scarce, high-impact roles first, you avoid the classic single-club trap: a front three of legends sitting in front of a defence you had to scrape together.

Mixing eras is fine

Do not feel you have to build a side that could have played together. A goalkeeper from one decade behind a back four from another is completely legitimate — the simulation only cares about ratings and balance, not whether the careers overlapped. The whole joy of the mode is collapsing thirty years into one team sheet, so embrace it.

Prime Mode is especially fun in this mode: rate every legend at their career peak and you get a club's absolute ceiling, one position at a time.

Attack the weak position early

If you already know your club is thin at, say, left-back or a holding role, prioritise it. Depth runs out fastest at a club's weakest position, so the longer you wait, the worse your options become. Spending an early pick on a club's least-celebrated area is rarely glamorous, but it is almost always what turns a flattering side into a genuinely strong one.

Replay the same club

Because a club's pool is fixed, All Time XI is built for experimentation. Try the same club in an attacking shape and then a defensive one and watch how the projected strength shifts. Save your best efforts to Versus and put two clubs' all-time elevens head to head. It is the closest the game gets to settling the eternal pub argument about which club's history is truly the greatest. New to drafting fundamentals? Start with how to play, then come back and build a dynasty.