The best XI of the 1970s
The highest-rated player available at every position in the 1970s, drawn from 6,897 real career records across 96 squads. Nobody voted. The record book chose.
| Pos | Player | From | Record | Legend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GK | Peter Shilton | England 1970s | 125 apps | 94 |
| RB | Bobby Moore | England 1970s | 108 apps · 2g | 94 |
| CB | Franz Beckenbauer | Germany 1970s | 103 apps · 14g | 94 |
| CB | Berti Vogts | Germany 1970s | 96 apps · 1g | 94 |
| LB | Karlheinz Förster | Germany 1970s | 81 apps · 2g | 94 |
| RM | Pelé | Brazil 1970s | 92 apps · 77g | 95 |
| CM | Rivelino | Brazil 1970s | 92 apps · 26g | 95 |
| CM | Bobby Charlton | England 1970s | 106 apps · 49g | 94 |
| LM | Wolfgang Overath | Germany 1970s | 81 apps · 17g | 94 |
| ST | Gerd Müller | Germany 1970s | 62 apps · 68g | 94 |
| ST | Karl-Heinz Rummenigge | Germany 1970s | 95 apps · 45g | 94 |
Total Football, the Brazil side of 1970, Bayern and Ajax trading European Cups. It is the decade people reach for when they argue about the best team ever, and the data broadly agrees: the XI is heavy on the national sides that met at three World Cups.
It is also the decade where English clubs first appear in strength, as ClubElo's ratings and Wikidata's appearance records both get denser from the late sixties onward.
What the table is doing
This eleven draws on 3 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 1970s chosen?
By record, not opinion. Every player in the 1970s 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 6,897 records across 96 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.