The Design Specification for Final Score demanded a quick-playing game (15 to 20 minutes per match), accurate results (of course), an exciting and smooth-flowing play system and the feeling that individual players were just as important as the overall team performance in arriving at the result.
For speed of play the game has to be a 'highlights' system. We decided on a deck of Fast Action Cards to provide the smooth flow, and we rejected a playing pitch [board] as being unnecessary. The basis of the system is the re-creation of the potentially decisive duels, between individual players, team strengths and tactics, that punctuate every soccer match.
The game includes team and player cards for sixteen prominent postwar English league teams.
From the "design concept" section of the rulebook: