Starting XI is a free daily football line-up puzzle in which you rebuild the eleven players who logged the most minutes for one club in one season. It is not a famous team sheet from a particular match and does not pretend to be — it is a real fact about a real season, worked out from the minutes actually played, which is why it sometimes includes a squad player you had forgotten was a regular. Positions are shown as hints, not requirements: name anyone in the XI and they drop into their own slot, in whatever order the names come to you. Guesses are unlimited and giving up reveals the rest. The club is one of seventeen and the season one of ten from 2016-17 on, set at midnight UTC for everybody at once.
By minutes played across the whole season. The eleven who spent the most time on the pitch for that club form the board, which is a different list from the side that started any given match. It also means the XI is checkable rather than a matter of opinion — the same season always produces the same eleven.
No. The position labels are there as hints, and any name you get right is placed into its own slot automatically. You can start with the goalkeeper, the centre-forward or whoever you happen to remember first; the board sorts itself out. Nothing is lost by naming players out of order.
Keep guessing, because there is no penalty and no limit, and the last three are usually a full-back and a rotation midfielder rather than anyone famous. When you have had enough, give up and the remaining slots are filled in. Either way the game is closed for the day.
One of seventeen clubs across the Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1, in one of the ten seasons from 2016-17 to 2025-26. Difficulty is set by how well known that season’s eleven are, so an Easy board is a side most people could half-recite and a Hard one is not.
Start with the goalkeeper and the two centre-backs — they are the slots where one player usually took nearly every minute, so they are the safest names on the board.
Squad Rush widens the same season to the whole squad against a clock, while Squad Numbers goes at it through the shirts they wore.