EMOJI XI

Emoji XI is a daily football riddle game: five emoji puzzles a day, each spelling out a footballer or club through pictures, nicknames and wordplay.

How to play Emoji XI

Every puzzle is a short string of emoji that decodes to one answer — a player, a club, or a piece of football culture. Some are literal (a picture of the thing), but most lean on nicknames, sounds and wordplay: a club's badge animal, a player's celebration, a pun on their name. You get a hint if you're stuck and can reveal the answer when you give up, with five fresh riddles each day.

How to crack the tricky ones

• Read them out loud. Many answers are puns — the emoji sound like the name rather than picture it. Saying the string often unlocks it instantly.
• Think nicknames, not just names. Clubs and countries are frequently clued by their badge symbol or popular nickname rather than the literal name.
• Count the emoji. The number of symbols often maps to the number of words or syllables in the answer.
• Mind the order. Emoji usually read left to right like the words of the answer, so a flag at the end may be a surname's origin, not the whole clue.

Use the practice set to get a feel for the puzzle style before tackling the day's five. It's a quick, low-stakes way to test how well you really know the game's badges, stars and history.

Five fresh riddles every day. Unofficial fan game — not affiliated with FIFA or any league.