How good is your footballing knowledge? Is it better than your mates?

You can argue down the pub all you like, but if you want a definitive way to settle that argument, then Footle – the daily football player guessing game – is exactly what you are looking for.

It’s basically Wordle but for football players, and it’s addictive. If you don’t know what Wordle is, don’t worry, I’ll explain how Footle works below.

Essentially though, it’s a game where you have a limited number of guesses to correctly identify a football player the computer chooses at random.

It chooses a new player each day, and everyone who plays is attempting to guess the same player. This is what makes it great for friends who like to test each other. If one of you gets it right and the other doesn’t, or one of you gets it in 6 guesses and the other takes 7, that person has bragging rights for the day.

Anyway, here’s how to play.

Aim of the Game: How to Play

To begin with, you have no information at all. Zero. Nada. Nothing.

You just have to make an initial guess, and go from there. Whoever you choose, the game will tell you how close you are to the correct player using a number of different categories:

• Position
• Sub Position
• Age
• Nationality
• Club
• League
• Height
• Foot

If the player you guessed matches the player the computer is thinking of in any of these categories, it will go green. If you’re close, it will go orange, and if you are nowhere near, it will stay grey.

The way the orange ‘close but no cigar’ bit works is different depending on the category:

• Age: Orange if within 3 years
• Height: Orange if within 5cm
• Club: Orange if in same league
• Nationality: Orange if from same continent
• Sub Position: Orange if the right position (defender, midfield, etc.)

With the league, position, and foot categories there is no ‘close match’ – you’re either right or you’re wrong.

Using this new information, you make your next guess, and the computer answers in the same way. So you can use the info to narrow down the various different categories and zero in on the correct player.

The fewer guesses required the better.

Real Example

To give you a decent idea, here is a game I just played.

To begin with, I guessed Diogo Dalot:

I now knew I was looking for a right footed defender who played at right back, who didn’t play in the Premier League, who was European, in their twenties, and between 178cm and 188cm tall.

I had a think (I don’t claim to know the exact height and age of every player in the world but I can make an educated guess), and went for Sergio Carreira, a right back for Celta Vigo.

I now had the nationality and league nailed down, so I was looking for LaLiga players who were Spanish, and I also knew I was looking at someone in their early to mid-twenties. In terms of height, I didn’t learn anything new.

I kept guessing with this process of elimination and in the end got to Espanyol’s Rubén Sánchez:

I’ll be honest, I cheated to find the answer. I ran out of well known players that fit the information I had and ultimately resolved to running through online team sheets, but nevertheless, you get the idea.

It’s possible to use some tactical guesses to narrow things down too, but you don’t want to waste a go unnecessarily, because those 10 guesses run out quicker than you expect. You will get the hang of when to guess tactically and when not to the more often you play.

There are alternative versions of the game where you can start with players from specific leagues if your knowledge is all focussed on one league, but you only get 5 guesses instead of 10 if you go for that option. So it’s no easier, but it will at least be someone you have probably heard of!