From career path to final answer

Choose your game

Choose Quick Play, then Casual, Football Fan, Expert or Challenger. Start with Casual if you are new: its player pool contains the most recognisable names. Custom league, club and nationality quizzes are available with a free account.

Study clubs and years

The first clue shows the player's senior career path, age or birth year and current-club status.

Guess or reveal another clue

Enter a player name whenever you are ready, or reveal league appearances and goals, position and nationality.

Watch the player name

Individual letter boxes show the shape of the name and reveal more letters as the round continues.

Score before time runs out

The available reward falls with time and wrong guesses. Last Chance gives one final ten-second attempt for a smaller reward.

Choose a difficulty that fits your football knowledge

Recognition measures how familiar a player is likely to be, not how good they were. Each Quick Play level uses a separate range. Expert does not mix in the whole catalogue, and Challenger is deliberately for deeper football knowledge.

• Casual: recognition 80–100; up to 1.20 regular points.
• Football Fan: recognition 60–79; up to 1.80 regular points.
• Expert: recognition 40–59; up to 2.40 regular points.
• Challenger: recognition 0–39; up to 3.00 regular points.

Harder settings reveal fewer name letters and can round the appearance and goal figures. The displayed reward is the amount still available, not a promise of the maximum after every correct answer.

Read the career clue accurately

Clubs are a career history, not just the player's current team. A former Tottenham player can still be the answer to a Tottenham connection. Loans matter when the player made the required senior appearances. Use the years to separate players from different generations who wore the same shirt.

Our club statistics count senior league matches and goals, not all competitions. Cup goals, international goals and youth appearances should not be added to them. If a remembered total seems too high, check what it counts before discarding your candidate.

For practice without a timer or account, try three worked deductions with answer explanations.

Guest play, accounts and public scores

Guests can start five Quick Play games per day. When the daily allowance runs out, wait for it to reset or register for a free account. Mini-games, ClueXI Daily, Custom Mode and 1v1 require registration; buying Pro is not required to unlock them.

A free account saves your progress and scores. Choose whether to appear on public leaderboards during registration; that choice can be changed later. Regular game points and premium reward points are separate balances, so do not expect a 0.20-point answer to add 0.20 premium points.

Pick a mini-game by the skill you want to practise

• Name Five: name five players matching one current Big Five club and one nationality. Past players and eligible senior loans count. Each correct answer earns 0.20 regular points, capped at 1.00 for that combination per day. Revealing the answers ends scoring for that combination that day.
• Name XI: find a five-letter footballer surname in six guesses. Green means the letter is in the right place, yellow means elsewhere, and grey means no remaining match. Repeated letters only receive credit for the number of times they occur in the answer.
• Picture Reveal: identify a player as a cropped portrait zooms out over 60 seconds. Choose the difficulty before the round.
• Transfer Trail: identify the player as clubs appear in career order. Earlier correct guesses preserve more of the reward.
• Guess the Club: find the shared club. A league clue appears after three players; the club-name length appears after five.
• Higher or Lower: compare appearances or goals across six choices. Check the statistic before deciding: a longer career can beat a more famous player.

Daily and head-to-head games

ClueXI Daily gives everyone the same answer and one scored attempt each day. Starting consumes that attempt, so begin when you have time to finish. Previous answers appear in the public archive; today's answer is withheld.

In standard 1v1, both players receive the same ten questions. Ranked compares correct answers first, with total points breaking a tie; Casual compares total points. You can join a friend using a room code, or use Ranked for competitive matchmaking.

Ranked looks for a real player within 250 rating points, including across a division boundary. Both players use the same questions from the lower-rated player's division pool. If no suitable human is waiting after 20 seconds, a clearly labelled practice bot becomes available. Bot matches do not change ratings, placements, leaderboard points or Premium rewards. The bot's answers are set before play, not adjusted to your score. You can leave practice to search again; an opponent is never replaced midway through a match.

Something looks wrong?

Send the player's name, the mode, the clue you saw and a reliable source through the correction form or support@cluexi.co.uk. Never include your password. The data guide explains the catalogue's limits and how records are checked.