Rest of the World, Football Legends Database

The other football world

Most all-time editions are built on one country. Rest of the World is built on ten. Portugal, the Netherlands, Scotland, Serbia, Ukraine, Belgium, Greece, Uruguay, Chile and Colombia each send their greatest clubs into a single league, so Benfica, Ajax, Celtic, Red Star Belgrade, Dynamo Kyiv, Anderlecht, Olympiacos, Peñarol, Colo-Colo and Atlético Nacional finally share a table.

These are not minor names. Between them the clubs in this edition have won the European Cup, the Intercontinental Cup and the Copa Libertadores many times over. Ajax rewrote the sport in the early 1970s with Cruyff, Neeskens and Krol. Benfica had Eusébio. Celtic put eleven men born within thirty miles of Glasgow into a European Cup final and won it. Red Star beat Marseille in Bari. Peñarol and Nacional turned Montevideo into the most decorated city in South American club football.

The edition plays differently from a single-country pool. There is no one dominant giant to plan around and no shared golden age: the peak Ajax side, the peak Porto side and the peak Peñarol side come from completely different decades and completely different traditions. Drafting well here means reading each club's era rather than its badge.

Rest of the World also runs as a full Dynasty nation, with a three-tier pyramid whose lower divisions are the second and third clubs of the same ten countries, so a climb still reads as a climb through one coherent football world.