The best XI of the 1940s
The highest-rated player available at every position in the 1940s, drawn from 942 real career records across 19 squads. Nobody voted. The record book chose.
| Pos | Player | From | Record | Legend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GK | Gyula Grosics | Hungary 1940s | 86 apps | 91 |
| RB | Nílton Santos | Brazil 1940s | 75 apps · 3g | 92 |
| CB | José Salomón | Argentina 1940s | 44 apps | 92 |
| CB | Sándor Bíró | Hungary 1940s | 54 apps | 90 |
| LB | Mihály Lantos | Hungary 1940s | 52 apps · 5g | 89 |
| RM | José Manuel Moreno | Argentina 1940s | 34 apps · 19g | 93 |
| CM | Giampiero Boniperti | Italy 1940s | 38 apps · 8g | 93 |
| CM | Tom Finney | England 1940s | 76 apps · 30g | 93 |
| LM | Enrique García | Argentina 1940s | 35 apps · 9g | 92 |
| ST | Silvio Piola | Italy 1940s | 34 apps · 30g | 94 |
| ST | Norberto Doroteo Méndez | Argentina 1940s | 31 apps · 19g | 92 |
The emptiest decade in the dataset, and for the obvious reason: competitive football stopped across most of Europe between 1939 and 1945, and the appearances players made in wartime regional competitions were rarely recorded as league football.
The XI therefore leans on the countries that kept playing — Hungary, Argentina, Sweden, Italy — and on careers that bridged the war at either end. Several players here show a gap in our data between the 1930s and the 1950s that is not a career break at all, just six years nobody was counting.
What the table is doing
This eleven draws on 5 different teams. Each player is ranked against others in the same position, decade and team type, so a goalkeeper’s appearance record and a striker’s goal record can sit in the same list without one drowning the other. The full derivation, including where it is least certain, is in the methodology.
Public records contain errors, so this list can too. Every name above links to its squad page, and every squad page links to the Wikidata record behind the figures — if something here is wrong, it can be checked in two clicks, and corrections are welcome.
Common questions
How is this the best xi of the 1940s chosen?
By record, not opinion. Every player in the 1940s is ranked on their real career output — appearances, goals, assists and honours — and the highest-rated available player fills each position in a 4-4-2. The pool here is 942 records across 19 squads.
Can I check these numbers?
Yes, and that is the point. Each player links to the squad page they came from, and every squad page links each name to the Wikidata record the figures were extracted from.
Can I play with this XI?
Not this exact eleven — the game deals you a random team and decade each turn and you draft from what you are given. That constraint is the game. These pages show what the strongest possible eleven would look like if you were never constrained at all.