Serie A is a league, and in Legends XI it is played as one: twenty teams, thirty-eight rounds, everyone against everyone, home and away. There is no final to rescue a season and no draw to forgive a bad month — the champion is whoever collects the most points by the end of the campaign. It runs from 1929-30, the year of the girone unico that first united Italy under a single national championship, through to 2025-26, with the champion, the runner-up and the third-placed club of every season — ninety-four seasons in all, because 1943-44, 1944-45 and 1945-46 are left out: the war stopped the competition, and the transitional championship played in groups that followed it does not share this format. It is also the only competition in the game carrying a scandal inside its own table: Calciopoli stripped Juventus of the 2004-05 and 2005-06 titles in real life, but this game does not treat the two seasons the same way — in 2004-05 Juventus still stands as champion in this data, and only from 2005-06 does the punishment show up in the table: the title was awarded to Inter Milan, with Milan finishing third on 58 points after a 30-point deduction. Legends XI does not hide Calciopoli, but it models it differently across the two seasons — the 2004-05 table stands exactly as it closed in this data, with Juventus in first.
Every competition in the game has one card rated 100, and it does not belong to the best player who happened to pass through: it belongs to whoever dominates the history of the competition. A single outstanding season is not the measure — the goals, the titles and the records piled up over decades are. The season on the card is simply the one that best embodies that dominance, and the test is straightforward: take that year away and it would still be him. In Serie A that test points to a name who never won a single Scudetto — and that is the exception that proves the rule: when the record is big enough, it outweighs the honours list. The name is Silvio Piola.
The competition's all-time great
Silvio Piola — Lazio 1936-37
Two hundred and seventy-four goals in Serie A: the outright record of the competition, and nobody — not even the forwards who played decades later, across far more games — has come close. The card is from 1936-37, the season he was capocannoniere with Lazio, who finished that campaign in second place; the card is still from that season, because what it marks is the record and not the title. And this is where this house's test shows its hardest edge: across nearly twenty years of a career, Piola never won a single Scudetto — and he still stands as the name who dominates the history of the competition, because the rule of this competition weighs the record above the honours list.
GK
Gianluigi Buffon — Juventus FC 2015-16
Six hundred and fifty-seven appearances and ten Scudetti — both outright records of the competition, no qualification needed: the 657 is not just the record among goalkeepers, it is the highest number of appearances of all time in the competition — across a career spent almost entirely at Juventus. The card is from the 2015-16 season, in which he went nine hundred and seventy-four minutes without conceding, one of the longest streaks in the history of the competition.
RB
Javier Zanetti — Inter de Milão 2009-10
Six hundred and fifteen appearances for Inter Milan — the competition record for a foreign player — across nineteen seasons in Serie A. The card is from 2009-10, the treble season: Scudetto, Coppa Italia and the Champions League in the same year, with the captain on the pitch.
CB
Paolo Maldini — AC Milan 2003-04
Six hundred and forty-seven appearances, the competition record for an outfield player — and every one of them for the same club, AC Milan, from the start to the end of a twenty-five-year career. The card is from 2003-04, the season Milan won the title.
CB
Giorgio Chiellini — Juventus FC 2011-12
Nine consecutive Scudetti with Juventus — a record no one else in this competition holds, not nearly. He is the second of the two centre-backs in this eleven, alongside Paolo Maldini, because no formation in the game lines up with a single centre-back. The card is from 2011-12, the first of the nine straight titles.
LB
Giacinto Facchetti — Inter de Milão 1965-66
Fifty-nine goals, the most prolific defender in the history of the competition — a tally no full-back or centre-back in this competition has surpassed, despite decades of football played since. The card is from 1965-66, at the height of Helenio Herrera's Inter, the Grande Inter that dominated Europe in the mid-1960s.
CDM
Giuseppe Furino — Juventus FC 1974-75
Eight Scudetti across fourteen podium seasons with Juventus, the defensive midfield of one of the most successful generations in the club's history. The card is from 1974-75, in the middle of a run of titles and podium finishes that made Juventus the most successful club of the decade.
CM
Gianni Rivera — AC Milan 1967-68
One hundred and twenty-eight goals, the competition record for a central midfielder, and the 1969 Ballon d'Or, football's most important individual award that year. The card is from 1967-68, in the middle of a career spent almost entirely at AC Milan: he made his Serie A debut with Alessandria, in 1958-59, and played there for two seasons before moving to Milan.
CAM
Francesco Totti — AS Roma 2006-07
The greatest assist provider in the history of the competition — the sources disagree on the exact number, so none is given here — and the second highest goalscorer of all time, with two hundred and fifty goals, all of it for AS Roma, the only club of an entire career. The card is from 2006-07, the season he was Serie A's top scorer and won the European Golden Shoe.
RW
Giuseppe Meazza — Inter de Milão 1929-30
Two hundred and sixteen goals in Serie A — the fourth highest goalscorer of all time in the competition, level with Altafini — three top-scorer titles and two Scudetti, all of it for Inter Milan, whose face he was for a full decade. The card is from 1929-30, the first season of the girone unico: the Italian national championship is born with him as champion. There is a second season worth exactly the same — 1937-38, the other Scudetto, with the card at the same ceiling of the scale — and it is that twin which proves this house's rule: take away the year on the card and it would still be him. The opening season was chosen because the competition starts with him on top, and eight years later he was still there.
LW
István Nyers — Inter de Milão 1950-51
Serie A's top scorer in 1948-49, the only Hungarian in this eleven and one of the first great foreign forwards of post-war Italian football. The card is from 1950-51, the season he scored thirty-one goals for Inter Milan, two years after the top-scorer title.
ST
Gunnar Nordahl — AC Milan 1949-50
Serie A's top scorer five times — the outright record of the competition, standing since 1954-55 and unmatched since. The card is from 1949-50, the season he scored thirty-five goals in thirty-seven games for AC Milan, alongside the other two Swedes of the Gre-No-Li trio.