The chances are extremely high that you have played Wordle or, at the very least, a game similar to it. It became all the rage many years ago, largely thanks to its simplicity and the fact that it was a challenge to those who played it.

Unsurprisingly, numerous imitations of it sprang up, especially after the New York Times spent a huge amount of money acquiring it for the Games section of their app and website.

Football Wordle fits into the category of being a game based on the original Wordle, but giving it a, you guessed it, football twist.

How it Works

If you have played Wordle then you will no doubt be familiar with how Football Wordle works. If you haven’t then this is the right section for you as I’ll explain it for you in simple terms.

In essence, you are presented with a group of circles, repeated over six lines. Those circles represent letters, with the aim being to figure out the name of the footballer who is being hidden by those circles. You need to enter your guess and press ‘Enter’, at which point the letters will turn one of three colours, each representing something different:

• Black: the letter remains black if it is not featured in the footballer’s name
• Orange: a letter that has turned orange is featured in the footballer’s name, but isn’t in the right location
• Green: Should the letter goes green, that means both that it is part of the footballer’s name and that it is in the correct place

The idea is that you keep having guesses until you have identified the correct footballer’s name for that day of play. The good news is that the game has been taking place for a few years now, so there is not only the one from the day in question on offer but also an entire back catalogue of hundreds of previous Football Wordles for you to play in your own time.

How it Differs from Wordle

You might be wondering how this differs from Wordle, other than the obvious factor that it is someone’s name that you’re trying to track down rather than a random word from the dictionary. Although Football Wordle definitely uses some of the same things that you will find in normal Wordle, such as the use of colours to indicate how you’ve got on and the overall number of guesses you get to make (six), there are also some big differences. The first one is that the number of letters you need to guess will change from day to day.

That is because how many letters you will have to guess will depend on the player’s name. Whilst Wordle always asks you to guess a five-letter word, the same is not true of Football Wordle. In game #758, for example, it was Anderton, whilst in the following day’s game it was Robert. The number of circles on offer obviously grew in order to accommodate the longer name and reduced so as to stop you from being mistaken about how long the name was that you were trying to guess.

Another big difference is that you don’t actually have to guess footballers’ names or even real words. Whereas Wordle says that the guess that you enter has to be a real word, albeit with the American spelling, stopping you from just inputting gibberish, the same isn’t true when it comes to Football Wordle. I knew I was close to getting the right answer with Anderton but couldn’t figure out which letters I was missing, so I cheated a bit by putting in a guess of ANDTSOER. The only thing you need to do is input the correct number of letters.

Things to Think About to Win

If you hoping to win Football Wordle when you play then there are certain things you need to think about. For starters, you probably shouldn’t just input any old rubbish like I did. After all, you’re only really playing against yourself so cheating like that isn’t really helpful to your improvement over time. You should also be aware that it doesn’t save your progress, so if you get a name one day and then return later the same day it will look as if you have never played it. This can be a fun thing to do if you’ve got a terrible memory, going back later to play again.

Anyone for Football Wordle? pic.twitter.com/QUuwx9vi5h

— Andy Butt (@ButtonaBike) May 11, 2024

Another thing to bear in mind is that the players can be either older ones or current ones. I can’t think of a current player named either Anderton nor Robert, for example. This might cause issues for younger people who aren’t as familiar with players from the past, ending up caught out by names like Dalglish, Best or Sherringham. For older players, however, it is a great way to reconnect with some names from the past as well as try to keep up to date with the big players on the footballing scene nowadays. If you like your footy, it’s a fun little diversion to entertain.