Easy soccer trivia questions
This is the round where everyone scores, which is the point of having it. Each of these is something a person absorbs from watching a single match or from one season of youth soccer, so it gets the table talking before anything is at stake.
Q1.How many players from each team are on the field when a match kicks off?Tap to reveal
Answer: Eleven
One of the eleven is the goalkeeper, the only player allowed to handle the ball, and only inside their own penalty area.
Q2.How long is a standard match, not counting stoppage time?Tap to reveal
Answer: 90 minutes, in two halves of 45
The clock never stops for injuries or substitutions, so the referee adds the lost time at the end of each half.
Q3.Which organization, founded in Paris in 1904, governs world soccer?Tap to reveal
Answer: FIFA
The initials stand for Fédération Internationale de Football Association, which is why they are not in English order.
Q4.The word "soccer" is a short form of what longer name for the sport?Tap to reveal
Answer: Association football
British students in the 1880s clipped "assoc" and added -er, the same slang habit that turned rugby into rugger.
Q5.In soccer, what is a hat-trick?Tap to reveal
Answer: Three goals scored by one player in a single match
The term was borrowed from cricket, where a bowler who took three wickets in a row was traditionally given a hat.
Q6.What does it mean when a team keeps a clean sheet?Tap to reveal
Answer: They conceded no goals
The goalkeeper's line on the scoresheet stays blank, and the phrase now follows keepers around as a season-long statistic.
Q7.The Copa América is the championship of which continent?Tap to reveal
Answer: South America
First played in 1916, it is the oldest surviving continental championship for national teams anywhere in the world.
Q8.Which colour card does a referee show to send a player off the field?Tap to reveal
Answer: Red
Yellow and red cards were introduced together at the 1970 World Cup so decisions could be understood across language barriers.
Q9.In 1992 the European Cup was renamed. What is it now called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The UEFA Champions League
A group stage had arrived the season before the rename, and from 1997 more than one club per country could enter.
The laws of the game: soccer rules trivia
Rules questions are the fairest round on any soccer night, because the people who played badly for years often beat the people who only watch. They are also where most tables discover that they have been arguing about offside for a decade without knowing the actual wording.
If your group likes rules rounds, the same trick works for the other football: our football trivia questions set has a downs-and-scoring round that catches out lifelong NFL fans.
Q1.How many Laws of the Game are there?Tap to reveal
Answer: 17
The number has stayed at 17 since the laws were reorganized in the 1930s, though the text inside them is rewritten constantly.
Q2.Which body actually writes the Laws of the Game?Tap to reveal
Answer: The International Football Association Board, or IFAB
Founded in 1886, it predates FIFA, which holds only half the votes on it.
Q3.From what distance is a penalty kick taken?Tap to reveal
Answer: 12 yards, or 11 metres, from the goal line
The penalty kick was only added to the laws in 1891, after decades in which deliberate fouls near goal went effectively unpunished.
Q4.Can a player be offside in their own half of the field?Tap to reveal
Answer: No
Law 11 requires the player to be in the opponents' half, which is why a long clearance to a lone striker standing on the centre line is legal.
Q5.Name a restart from which a player cannot be offside.Tap to reveal
Answer: A throw-in (a goal kick or a corner kick also count)
All three are listed as exceptions, so a striker can stand behind the whole defence and receive a throw-in freely.
Q6.Offside is punished with which kind of free kick?Tap to reveal
Answer: An indirect free kick
A goal cannot be scored directly from an indirect free kick, so somebody else has to touch the ball first.
Q7.What are the dimensions of a full-size goal?Tap to reveal
Answer: 8 yards wide and 8 feet high (7.32 m by 2.44 m)
Those measurements have barely moved since the 1860s, which is why keepers have grown while the frame has not.
Q8.What must a player do for a throw-in to be legal?Tap to reveal
Answer: Face the field of play, keep part of each foot on the touchline or on the ground outside it, and throw the ball with both hands from behind and over the head, from the point where it left the field
Getting any one of those wrong hands the throw to the other team rather than earning a retake.
Q9.How few players can a team be down to and still continue a match?Tap to reveal
Answer: Seven
Below seven the referee must abandon the game, which is why a team already two men down defends very carefully.
Q10.The back-pass rule, introduced in 1992, stopped goalkeepers from doing what?Tap to reveal
Answer: Picking up a ball deliberately kicked to them by a teammate
It was a direct answer to the time-wasting that made the 1990 World Cup one of the lowest-scoring on record.
Legendary players: soccer trivia about the greats
Every name in this round has been retired long enough that the numbers no longer move and the arguments have mostly been settled. That is deliberate: a trivia question about a player who is still playing has a shelf life of about a week.
Q1.Which Brazilian's full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pelé
He spent almost his entire club career at Santos and never fully agreed on where his nickname came from.
Q2.Who is the only goalkeeper ever to win the Ballon d'Or?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lev Yashin, in 1963
The Soviet keeper played in all black and was nicknamed the Black Spider for how much of the goal he seemed to cover.
Q3.Which Dutch forward gave his name to a turn he first used at the 1974 World Cup?Tap to reveal
Answer: Johan Cruyff
He faked a pass, dragged the ball behind his standing leg and left the defender facing the wrong way; he won three Ballons d'Or.
Q4.Which German was nicknamed Der Kaiser and won the World Cup as both captain and manager?Tap to reveal
Answer: Franz Beckenbauer
He turned the sweeper position from a last line of defence into the place where attacks started.
Q5.Which Argentine won Serie A titles with Napoli in 1987 and 1990?Tap to reveal
Answer: Diego Maradona
They were Napoli's only league titles of the 20th century, won by a club from the poor south against the industrial north.
Q6.Which Hungarian, known as the Galloping Major, starred for the 1950s Golden Team and then Real Madrid?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ferenc Puskás
FIFA's annual award for the best goal carries his name, and he scored four in the 1960 European Cup final at the age of 33.
Q7.Which Benfica forward, born in Mozambique, was the top scorer at the 1966 World Cup?Tap to reveal
Answer: Eusébio
His nine goals included two penalties in a quarter-final comeback from 3-0 down against North Korea.
Q8.Which Czechoslovak player's chipped penalty in the 1976 European Championship final named a style of spot kick?Tap to reveal
Answer: Antonín Panenka
He waited for the keeper to dive and rolled the ball gently down the middle to win the shootout against West Germany.
Q9.Which Englishman's save from a Pelé header at the 1970 World Cup is often called the greatest ever?Tap to reveal
Answer: Gordon Banks
The header was going in at the far post and he got across to flick it up and over the bar from almost on the line.
Q10.Which Frenchman won the Ballon d'Or three years in a row, in 1983, 1984 and 1985?Tap to reveal
Answer: Michel Platini
He did it as a midfielder at Juventus while also finishing as Serie A's leading scorer three seasons running.
Clubs, cups and European nights
Club soccer is where the global reader and the American reader meet, because the competitions are old, the records are closed and the rivalries have names. This round stays on the history that is finished rather than on any current table.
If you want the national-team side of the story instead, our World Cup trivia questions page runs through every final from 1930 onward.
Q1.Which club won the first five European Cups, from 1956 to 1960?Tap to reveal
Answer: Real Madrid
Alfredo Di Stéfano played in all five finals and scored in every one of them.
Q2.Which Scottish club became the first British winner of the European Cup, in 1967?Tap to reveal
Answer: Celtic
The team known as the Lisbon Lions beat Inter Milan 2-1, and every player was born within about 30 miles of Glasgow.
Q3.Which English club won back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980 under Brian Clough?Tap to reveal
Answer: Nottingham Forest
They have won two European Cups and one league title, a ratio no other club comes close to.
Q4.Which Dutch club won three European Cups in a row in 1971, 1972 and 1973?Tap to reveal
Answer: Ajax
That side, built on Total Football, supplied the core of the Netherlands team that reached the 1974 World Cup final.
Q5.What is the oldest national cup competition in soccer, first played in 1871-72?Tap to reveal
Answer: The FA Cup
The first final was won by a team called Wanderers in front of a crowd of about 2,000.
Q6.Which two clubs contest El Clásico?Tap to reveal
Answer: Real Madrid and Barcelona
The fixture carries a century of regional and political history, which is why it is shown in more countries than most finals.
Q7.Which Buenos Aires rivalry is known as the Superclásico?Tap to reveal
Answer: Boca Juniors against River Plate
The two clubs began in the same dockside neighbourhood before River moved north, and together they hold most of Argentina's support.
Q8.Which two clubs share the San Siro stadium in Milan?Tap to reveal
Answer: AC Milan and Inter
Their derby is called the Derby della Madonnina, after the statue on top of Milan's cathedral.
Q9.What is South America's equivalent of the Champions League called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Copa Libertadores
Its winner has met Europe's champion in an intercontinental final since 1960, in various formats.
Famous matches and great comebacks
These are the games that get described rather than remembered, the ones where people tell you where they were sitting. Each question is about a completed match whose score will never change.
Q1.In the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul, which English club came back from 3-0 down at half-time to win on penalties?Tap to reveal
Answer: Liverpool
They scored three times in six minutes against AC Milan and then won the shootout 3-2.
Q2.Which club won the 1999 treble with two stoppage-time goals in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich?Tap to reveal
Answer: Manchester United
Bayern had led from the sixth minute and had already tied ribbons in their colours to the trophy.
Q3.Which country won the 1992 European Championship after only entering because Yugoslavia was excluded?Tap to reveal
Answer: Denmark
Several players were recalled from holiday, and they beat Germany in the final.
Q4.Which country won Euro 2004 after beating the host nation in both the opening match and the final?Tap to reveal
Answer: Greece
They beat Portugal 2-1 to start the tournament and 1-0 to end it, with a header from Angelos Charisteas.
Q5.In the 2014 World Cup semi-final in Belo Horizonte, Germany beat Brazil by what score?Tap to reveal
Answer: 7-1
Five of the goals came inside the first 29 minutes, in front of a home crowd that ended up applauding Germany.
Q6.Which national team won Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 in succession?Tap to reveal
Answer: Spain
No other country has won three consecutive major international tournaments, and they conceded a single goal in the whole of Euro 2012.
Q7.Which country beat England 6-3 at Wembley in 1953, ending England's unbeaten home record against teams from mainland Europe?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hungary
The game is still called the Match of the Century, and England lost the return in Budapest 7-1.
Soccer in the United States
American soccer history is genuinely good trivia and almost nobody writes questions about it. There is a boom that collapsed, an upset that Europe refused to believe, a league that started in 1996 with a shootout instead of ties, and a national team that lost a World Cup quarter-final by one goal.
This round plays especially well in a US room, because half the answers are things people half-remember from childhood. For a broader American sports mix, our sports trivia questions set spreads across five sports.
Q1.Which American club signed Pelé in 1975 and turned the North American Soccer League into national news?Tap to reveal
Answer: The New York Cosmos
His three seasons in New York drew crowds of more than 70,000 and ended with a farewell match in 1977.
Q2.The league that brought Pelé, Beckenbauer and Cruyff to America folded in 1984. What was it called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The North American Soccer League, or NASL
It expanded and overspent faster than its attendances could support, leaving the country without a top division for a decade.
Q3.In what year did Major League Soccer play its first season?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1996
It was promised as part of the United States' bid to host the 1994 World Cup.
Q4.Which club won the first MLS Cup, in 1996?Tap to reveal
Answer: D.C. United
They came from two goals down to beat the LA Galaxy 3-2 in extra time, in heavy rain outside Boston.
Q5.Which stadium hosted the 1994 World Cup final?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California
Brazil beat Italy on penalties there after a 0-0 draw, the first World Cup final decided by a shootout.
Q6.At the 1950 World Cup, the United States beat which country 1-0 in one of the sport's biggest upsets?Tap to reveal
Answer: England
Joe Gaetjens scored in Belo Horizonte, and some British newspapers assumed the scoreline had been sent by mistake.
Q7.The knockout cup open to American clubs at every level is named for the businessman who helped found both the AFL and MLS. Who was he?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lamar Hunt
The competition itself dates back to 1913, making it one of the oldest continuous tournaments in US sports.
Q8.How far did the US men's team go at the 2002 World Cup, their best modern finish?Tap to reveal
Answer: The quarter-finals
They beat Portugal and Mexico before losing 1-0 to Germany in a game they spent long stretches controlling.
Q9.Whose stoppage-time goal against Algeria sent the United States through at the 2010 World Cup?Tap to reveal
Answer: Landon Donovan
It came in the 91st minute of a game the US had to win, and won the group for them.
Women's soccer trivia questions
The women's game has its own closed history now, with finals old enough to be settled and records held by players who have retired. For an American audience it is also the part of soccer the country has been best at, which makes this a round the room usually wants.
Q1.In which country was the first Women's World Cup held, in 1991?Tap to reveal
Answer: China
The matches were shortened to 80 minutes, a decision quietly dropped before the next tournament.
Q2.Whose penalty won the 1999 Women's World Cup final for the United States at the Rose Bowl?Tap to reveal
Answer: Brandi Chastain
She converted the fifth kick of the shootout against China after 120 goalless minutes in front of more than 90,000 people.
Q3.Which country won the Women's World Cup in both 2003 and 2007?Tap to reveal
Answer: Germany
They went through the entire 2007 tournament without conceding a single goal.
Q4.Which country beat the United States on penalties in the 2011 Women's World Cup final?Tap to reveal
Answer: Japan
They equalized twice, the second time in the 117th minute, then won the shootout 3-1.
Q5.When Mia Hamm retired in 2004, which record did she hold?Tap to reveal
Answer: The most international goals by any player, male or female, with 158
She had scored them across 17 years for a team that went from near-invisibility to selling out stadiums.
Q6.Which American retired in 2015 having scored 184 international goals?Tap to reveal
Answer: Abby Wambach
She is still the leading scorer in the history of the US women's team, and her heading was the part of her game defenders planned for first.
Q7.Which Brazilian was named FIFA World Player of the Year five years in a row, from 2006 to 2010?Tap to reveal
Answer: Marta
She won it in an era when the women's game had far less television coverage than it does now.
Hard soccer trivia questions
Last round. These are for the person at the table who has opinions about tactical systems from before they were born. If anyone gets more than five, let them pick the next category.
Q1.What defensive system, Italian for "door bolt", did Helenio Herrera perfect at Inter in the 1960s?Tap to reveal
Answer: Catenaccio
It added a free sweeper behind a man-marking defence and won two European Cups, while making Italian soccer's reputation for caution.
Q2.Which stadium was the first to host two World Cup finals?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Estadio Azteca in Mexico City
It staged the 1970 final and then the 1986 final, at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet.
Q3.Who won the first Ballon d'Or, in 1956?Tap to reveal
Answer: Stanley Matthews
The English winger was 41 at the time and went on playing in the Football League until he was 50.
Q4.What was the name of the black-and-white 32-panel ball made for the 1970 World Cup so it would show up on television?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Telstar
It was named after the communications satellite, and its pattern became the generic picture of a soccer ball.
Q5.The golden goal rule decided two European Championship finals before being scrapped in 2004. Which country won in 1996 using one?Tap to reveal
Answer: Germany
Oliver Bierhoff's shot squirmed past the Czech keeper in extra time, ending the match immediately.
Q6.Which Northern Irishman won the 1968 Ballon d'Or while playing for Manchester United?Tap to reveal
Answer: George Best
He had scored in the European Cup final that same year, at 22, and never appeared at a World Cup.
Q7.Under what name did the Brazilian winger Manuel Francisco dos Santos play?Tap to reveal
Answer: Garrincha
The nickname means little bird; he played with legs of noticeably different lengths and was almost never on the losing side for Brazil.
Q8.Which club, founded in 1857, is recognized as the oldest in the world?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sheffield FC
It wrote its own rules in 1858, five years before the Football Association existed, and still plays in the lower reaches of English soccer.
Q9.In which London tavern was the Football Association founded in 1863?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Freemasons' Tavern
The meetings there produced the first common laws, and the clubs that wanted to keep handling the ball walked out toward rugby.
How to run a soccer trivia night (and a translation table)
Four rounds of ten is the shape that works. Open with the easy round so the whole room scores, put rules second because it is the fairest and it settles arguments, use clubs or famous matches as the middle round, and close with hard mode. Read the answers at the end of each round rather than after every question; it keeps the night moving and stops one table from arguing through the next three questions.
One warning specific to soccer: this is the most regional trivia category there is. A question about the FA Cup lands in a London pub and dies in Ohio; a question about the first MLS Cup does the reverse. If your room is mixed, weight it toward the two rounds that travel everywhere — rules and legends — and keep the local rounds short.
Mixed rooms also run into vocabulary. Half the table says one word, half says another, and both are correct:
| American English | Rest of the world |
|---|---|
| field | pitch |
| uniform | kit |
| cleats | boots |
| zero | nil |
| shutout | clean sheet |
| overtime | extra time |
| tie | draw |
| standings | table |
| PK | spot kick |
For a younger group, swap the legends and hard rounds out entirely and use sports trivia for kids instead; the easy and rules rounds above are the only two here that work for under-tens. If you would rather have it scored for you, the Sports category in the Trivio.NET app has soccer packs you can play free, including head-to-head rounds if your table turns competitive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are good soccer trivia questions for beginners?
Start with the shape of the game rather than with names: eleven players a side, two 45-minute halves, FIFA founded in 1904, a hat-trick is three goals. Anyone who has watched one match can answer those, and that first round of nine is where everybody scores.
How many soccer trivia questions do I need for a trivia night?
Around 40 for a full evening: four rounds of ten, with a short break for scoring between each. The 70 here give you that plus spares, which matters because you will always need to swap a question the room finds too easy or too obscure.
Is it called soccer or football?
Both are English and both came from England. "Soccer" is a clipped form of "association football" from the 1880s. It stuck in the United States, Canada, Australia and Ireland, where another game already owned the word football, and faded in Britain.
What is the difference between the World Cup and the Champions League?
The World Cup is for national teams and is played every four years. The Champions League is for clubs, runs every season across Europe, and was called the European Cup until 1992. Different trophies, different competitors, no overlap in records.
Are these soccer trivia questions suitable for kids?
The easy round and most of the rules round work for about age eight upward, since they test things a child who plays weekend soccer already knows. The legends and hard rounds assume decades of history, so for a younger group start with our kids' sports set.
Can I print these soccer trivia questions for a party?
Yes. Copy the rounds you want into a document, keep the answers on a separate host sheet, and print one question sheet per table. Reading answers aloud at the end of each round rather than each question keeps the night moving.
