FootyFox
Frequently Asked Questions
How the daily puzzles work, what each clue colour means, where the player data comes from, and what happens to your stats.
Playing
What is FootyFox?
FootyFox is a set of daily football guessing games. Each league has one hidden player a day, and you identify them from colour-coded clues on age, nationality, position, club and shirt number. Everyone playing a league that day gets the same player.
Which games are available?
Three daily league puzzles, Champions League, Premier League and La Liga, plus an endless mode for each and a club-badge quiz called Name the Club.
How many guesses do I get?
Ten in each daily league challenge. Endless mode also gives you ten per player, but a single miss ends the run rather than the day.
When does a new player appear?
At midnight UTC. A scheduled job draws the next day's player for every live league, so the puzzle exists whether or not anyone is playing.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
It is free and there is no account. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, no paywall.
Clues
What do the clue colours mean?
Green means the clue is exact. Yellow means it is close in a way defined per clue. Anything else means no match.
When is an age clue close rather than exact?
When the two players are within two years of each other. Ages are computed from date of birth, so a player who has a birthday mid-week can change band.
When is a country clue close?
When both players represent countries in the same confederation, so a Brazilian guessed against an Argentinian is close and a Brazilian guessed against a Norwegian is not.
When is a position clue close?
When the positions are adjacent on the goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, forward line. Defender against midfielder is close; defender against forward is not.
Why does the club clue behave differently between leagues?
Because the useful near-miss is different. In the Champions League a yellow club clue means the mystery player's club is from the same country as your guess. In the Premier League and La Liga it means the same region of the country, and the region is also shown as its own column.
When is a shirt number close?
When the two numbers are within four of each other.
What does the arrow on an age or shirt number clue mean?
It points at the answer. Up means the mystery player is older, or wears a higher number, than the player you guessed; down means the opposite. It appears on any miss, yellow or not, so even a badly wrong age tells you which direction to move.
The player data
Where do the players come from?
Current first-team squads. Squad lists, shirt numbers and positions come from each club's Wikipedia article, nationalities are the national team the player is listed for, and dates of birth come from Wikidata matched by entity rather than by name.
How current are the squads?
They are rebuilt at the start of a season and again after each transfer window closes. Between refreshes a deadline-day signing or a reassigned shirt number can be missing.
Why can I not find a player I know is at the club?
Either the squad has moved on since the last refresh, or the player has no shirt number or no verifiable date of birth yet. A player with a clue we cannot fill is left out rather than shown with a blank cell.
Do I have to type accents to find a player?
No. Search ignores accents in both directions, so Odegaard, odegaard and Ødegaard all find Martin Ødegaard.
How is the daily player picked?
At random from that league's pool, with every eligible player equally likely. It is not weighted by fame and not personalised to you.
Your data
Where are my streak and stats stored?
In your own browser. There is no account and nothing about your play is tied to an identity.
Can I reset my stats?
Yes. Clearing site data for footyfox.com in your browser removes local stats and game progress. It cannot be undone.
Will my streak survive on another device?
No. Because progress lives in browser storage rather than an account, a different browser or device starts fresh.
Still stuck
The clue guide walks through a full board colour by colour, and the about page covers how the datasets are built and refreshed.
If you have spotted a wrong player detail, a missing player, or a clue that behaved oddly, send it through. Squad corrections are the most useful message we get.