how to play back four
Back four is a free daily football groups puzzle. Sixteen footballers hide four groups of four, and each group shares one fact: a club they played for, a country, a star they played with, the Ballon d'Or, the shirt number they wear now or the year they were born. Find all four groups before you make four mistakes.
- Tap four players you think share something, then submit.
- A right group locks in as a colored bar with its fact. Colors run from the easiest group to the hardest.
- A wrong four costs one of your four mistakes. If three of your four belong together, you hear that you are one away.
- Stuck? The hint names the easiest group you haven't found yet. It adds one to your score, so use it when you mean it.
- Your score is your mistakes plus your hints, so lower is better and zero is perfect.
Keyboard: Tab moves between players and Space picks one or puts it back. Tab on to submit when you have four. Esc goes back to the menu.
tips
- Every board has red herrings: three players who share a club or a country but are not a group. Only a fact that fits exactly four counts.
- Played with means the two were at the same club in the same season: their years there overlap by at least one full year.
- Played for counts every club in a career, loans included. Youth sides and national teams don't count.
- Shirt numbers are the ones players wear at their club right now.
- Shuffle when you're stuck. A new layout breaks the pairs your eyes keep making.
faq
Is there a new puzzle every day?
Yes. Everyone gets the same sixteen players that day. Freeplay deals a fresh board: easy keeps to the best known names and the biggest clubs, hard reaches deeper and adds birth years.
How do you know there is only one answer?
Every board is checked by a solver before it ships. Each group's fact fits exactly its four players, and no other fact we use, a club, a country, a teammate, an award, a shirt number or a birth year, fits more than three of the sixteen. A check proves this for a year of dailies.
Why isn't position a group?
With sixteen players some position always has four of them, so it would never be a fair group. Position never counts.
How is it scored?
Mistakes plus hints, lower is better. Lose all four mistakes and the board wins. The share shows each guess as colored squares, easiest group green and hardest red, with no names.
Where do the players come from?
Player facts and careers come from Wikidata (CC0), the same open data as our other football games. Back four is not affiliated with any league, club or player.