Matchday paper
How to play the daily football quiz
Seven clues, one name each, and a server that owns the key. Here is the whole rulebook: the clock, the retries, the tiers and the parts of the page that stay hidden.
The rulebook in three steps
Read the clue
Each round names a competition, an era and any eligibility rule. You get three seconds before the clock starts, and the clue stays on screen while you answer.
Name one valid answer
Twenty-five seconds, one name: a player, club, country, manager or stadium. The server checks it against the verified list and its listed aliases. A wrong answer can be retried while the clock runs.
Take the tier
A correct answer scores its fixed rarity tier. Seven rounds, one answer each, and the set is worth up to 700 points. Timeout, skip or a locked miss scores zero for that round.
Rarity tiersFive fixed tiers, per accepted answer
| Points | Tier | Shot |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Legendary | 35 yards |
| 75 | Top Corner | 25 yards |
| 50 | Playmaker | 18 yards |
| 25 | Builder | 12 yards |
| 10 | Starter | 6 yards |
Reading time3 sec
Answer time25 sec
Round ceiling100
Perfect set700
A round can only reach 100 if its verified answer list contains a Legendary answer, so 700 stays reachable. Tiers are editorial rarity estimates, not measurements of what other players typed, and the game never shows a fake “only 1% answered this” figure.
The set
Each New York day publishes one frozen set of seven clues. A clue names a competition, an era and any eligibility rule, and asks for a single entity: a player, a club, a country, a manager or a stadium. There is no multiple choice, because the point is to recall the name rather than to recognise it.
Once a set is frozen its questions, answer lists and tiers do not change. A game that started before midnight finishes on the board it started with, so nobody loses a round to a rollover.
The clock
- 3 seconds to read. The clue appears, the input stays disabled, and a short count-in runs.
- 25 seconds to answer. The ring in the panel is that clock. Submitting does not pause it.
- Wrong answers can be retried while the clock still runs, up to 6 submissions per round.
- One accepted answer locks the round. After that the round cannot be replayed for a better tier.
- Timeout or skip scores zero for that round and moves on. The server measures the round itself, so a stopped client clock does not buy extra time.
What counts as correct
Both the submission and the key go through the same fold: accents are removed, letters are lowercased, punctuation becomes a space, and runs of spaces collapse. After that the strings must be equal. There is no fuzzy distance and no autocorrect, and club suffixes are never stripped by rule: a shorter form works only when the editorial alias list contains it.
| Your answer | Key | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Kylian Mbappe | Kylian Mbappé | Correct — accents are folded on both sides |
| Saint Etienne | Saint-Étienne | Correct — the hyphen becomes a space |
| Sporting Lisbon | Sporting CP | Wrong — the English name is not on that list |
| Sporting C | Sporting CP | Wrong — no partial matching |
| Zaire | DR Congo | Correct — the historical name is on the alias list |
When one string legitimately names two entities on the same list, the game asks you to pick one instead of scoring the first match. A guess that matches nothing is simply wrong: the page never reveals the name you were close to.
Scoring
Points are attached to the answer, not to the clue. A well-known name is worth 10, a genuinely obscure one is worth 100, and there are three bands between them. A clue can only reach 100 if its verified list actually contains a Legendary answer, which is why the 700-point set is reachable rather than a slogan.
These tiers are editorial rarity estimates, reviewed before a set is frozen. They are not live percentages of what other players typed, and the site will not print “only 1% got this” without first-party aggregate data to back it up.
Refresh, background tabs and the clock
Progress is held on the server for the duration of a session, so reloading the page returns you to the round you were on with the rounds you already locked intact. The server, not the browser, decides whether a round is still open. If the tab sleeps for a minute, the round does not silently reset and the clock does not restart.
Unlimited play
Practice draws seven clues that are not part of today’s set, with the same clock and the same server check. Nothing from a practice run is stored or shared: the daily result is the only one the site records, and it records it in your browser.
What is not on the site
- No account, no newsletter, no push notifications.
- No answer, alias or tier in the page source, the RSC payload or any client bundle.
- No leaderboard, no cross-device sync and no fake rarity percentage.
- No hints after a miss, and no “did you mean”.
Questions
The small
print.
Scoring, timing and where your result lives. No account, no email, no download.
Is Footbillion free to play?
Yes. The daily set, unlimited practice and every reference page are free. There is no subscription, no paywall and no app to download.
Do I need an account?
No. There is nothing to sign up for and no email to give. Your result for today is kept in this browser, so clearing site data clears your score.
How are answers checked and scored?
The server compares the text you submit with a verified list of accepted football names and their listed aliases. A correct answer scores its editorial tier: 10, 25, 50, 75 or 100 points. A wrong answer scores nothing, and the game never guesses what a misspelling meant.
Does the quiz change every day?
Yes. A new set starts at midnight in New York (America/New_York), not at midnight wherever you are. The page shows which set date you are playing, so a late-night player can see it change.
Where are my scores saved?
Today's result lives in this browser only. There is no profile, no score database and no cross-device sync. If an account system ever ships, its storage rules get published first.
Why do rare answers score more points?
Editors place each verified answer in a fixed rarity tier before the set goes live: 10 Starter, 25 Builder, 50 Playmaker, 75 Top Corner, 100 Legendary. These are curated difficulty estimates, not live percentages of what other players answered.