Frequently asked questions

footylinks is a daily football puzzle. You are given two players and have to connect them through the clubs they shared, stepping from a player to one of their club-seasons, to a teammate from that squad, and on until you reach the target.

Every pick is one move, whether you pick a club-season or a player. Going from one player to the next through a shared club therefore takes two moves. The counter next to your path shows how many moves you have used.

Each puzzle has a move budget: the length of the best possible solution plus a small allowance. If you use every move without connecting the two players, you lose that puzzle. The budget is what gives a daily game its tension, in the same way a guess limit does in Wordle or Connections.

After each move, the step you just made is coloured. Green means the move kept you on a shortest path to the target. Amber means it was a detour that moved you further away. The number beside your path shows how many moves you are now from the target, so you can judge how far a detour set you back.

Hints reveal the target's most recent club, then their full career, then a suggested next move. They do not use up moves, but each hint is recorded in your result, so a puzzle solved without hints reads better than one solved with them.

Yes. The daily puzzle is fixed for the whole day and identical for every player, so scores are comparable. It resets at midnight UTC, which may not be your local midnight.

Solving the daily puzzle extends your streak by one. Missing a day, or running out of moves, resets it to zero. Your streak and games played are stored in your browser, not on a server, so they stay on the device you play on.

Daily is one Premier League puzzle a day. Expert uses the full dataset across Europe. Practice lets you set your own leagues, seasons, difficulty and how obscure the players can be. Create builds a puzzle between two players of your choice and gives you a link to share.

The dataset spans the top two divisions of England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Portugal, across many seasons. The Daily puzzle is drawn from the Premier League only; Expert and Practice can use the full set.

Squad and appearance data comes from Transfermarkt. footylinks is an independent fan project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any club, league or Transfermarkt.

The graph is built from a fixed snapshot of the data, so very recent transfers may not appear, and spells outside the covered leagues are not included. A player only connects two clubs if they actually appeared for both in a covered season.

When you finish a puzzle you can copy your result to share it. In Create mode you build a puzzle between any two players and share the link, so a friend can attempt the exact same connection.

Yes. The game is free to play. It is supported by advertising, and there are no accounts to create.

Email sixlinksgaming@gmail.com. Bug reports that include the two players and the route you took are the most useful.