International Team of the Week: how it is computed, and how to call it

By Perfect Eleven Editorial · Published 29 September 2026 · Updated 29 September 2026

An international break packs dozens of matches across six confederations into a few days at a time, and nobody agrees on who had the best of it. The International Team of the Week settles it with numbers: for each round of the break, the XI is computed from the round’s line-ups and results for the game’s 62 nations, with no editorial pick anywhere in it. The free game asks you to call that XI before the round kicks off.

Where the numbers come from

Line-ups, minutes, saves, cards and own goals come from ESPN’s public match data: who started, who came on and when, who went off and when, and the goals each side conceded while a player was on the pitch. Where ESPN’s key events for a match stop short of its score or its changes, its commentary of the same match is read instead, strictly: every change, goal, card and save with its minute, and the match is marked as read that way. A save counted from the commentary can be one fewer than ESPN’s box score would give, so a round does not settle while one more such save would change its XI or bench. Goals and assists are the site’s own results, the ones on the international fixtures and results page, entered by hand from several sources. Where ESPN credits a goal or an assist differently, the round does not settle until a named entry, with its source, says which stands; where the site has a full result, its record stands. Players are the game’s own: each nation’s squad as the game deals it, with the site’s positions, never ESPN’s. ESPN spells some players its own way (“Giovanni Reyna” for Gio Reyna), so a table of ESPN player ids, each checked against ESPN’s player page, ties those men to their squad rows. A player who took the field and matches no squad player, by name or by that table, cannot be selected, and each round below says how many there were: nobody is guessed.

The points

Every player who took the field in a counted match of the round scores, match by match, summed over the round (a nation that plays twice in a round counts both matches):

Selection rules

• Eligibility: a player must have taken the field in a counted match of the round. No minutes, no selection.
• Minutes: a starter plays to 90 unless he is substituted or sent off; a substitute from the minute he came on. Stoppage time is ignored (a change at 90+3 is at 90), so a stoppage-time substitute appears with no minutes counted.
• The XI: exactly one goalkeeper, then the ten outfielders with the most points in any valid formation (3–5 defenders, 2–5 midfielders, 1–3 forwards).
• Ties: more points first, then the lower player id (the site’s nation-and-name id, in alphabetical order), so the same round always gives the same XI.
• Player of the Week: the XI’s top scorer, marked with the star.
• Bench: the next-best goalkeeper plus the three best outfielders who missed the XI.
• Nation of the Week: the nation whose players put the most points into the XI (a tie goes to the lower code).
• A match that cannot be counted: where the source publishes no line-up for a match, or neither its key events nor its commentary account for the match (goals or substitutions missing), the match is left out of its round by a named entry, and the round lists it. Nothing about it is guessed.

When a round is decided, and why it never changes

A round is computed once every one of its fixtures involving the game’s nations is final and in the site’s results, and is then frozen: a later correction does not reopen a settled round, so every score on its board stays final. The break’s rounds: Round 1, 22–28 September; Round 2, 29 September – 2 October; Round 3, 3–6 October. Round 1 was over and Round 2 under way when the game opened, so both are, or will be, computed and published, but neither was ever open for picks. Round 3 is the first you can pick.

The pick game

Before a round’s first kick-off (a fixture whose time is not yet confirmed counts from 00:00 ET of its day), pick a formation, eleven players with at most three from one nation, a captain and a Nation of the Week. You can change your XI as often as you like until the lock; one entry per device per round. Then the round is played, its XI is computed, and you are scored:

Each round has its own board. Blanks score zero, so a partial XI still counts.

Free prediction game: no entry fee, no betting, no cash prizes or items of value. No account needed.

Every round