Survivor — Daily Football Elimination Game
How Survivor works
Sixteen players, five rounds, and a field that narrows every time. A condition is announced; you knock out everyone who does not meet it. Whoever is left faces the next one. By round five there are one or two players standing, and the ones you were sure about in round one are usually the ones who went out in round three.
113 conditions across 7 categories, applied to a roster of 766 players. Every round removes between two and six of the sixteen, and at least one player always survives to the end.
The board is built backwards, because forwards does not work. The design was to draw sixteen players and then find five conditions that eliminate a sensible number each. Simulated over 60 days, that produced a usable sequence on one of them — a random chain of five conditions usually intersects at nobody, and a random sixteen rarely falls into the right shape even when the chain is compatible.
So the chain is grown first, greedily, against the whole roster; each round keeps between a fifth and five-sixths of whoever is still alive. Then the squad is assembled from the players who fall at each specific round. 60 of 60 days build, eliminating roughly 4, 3.5, 3, 2.5 and 2.5 — a tightening curve rather than a cliff.
Maintained by the PlayFutbol Data Team · First puzzle published September 2026 · Last audited September 14, 2026.
How to play in 3 steps
- 1
Read the condition
One statement that some of the squad meet and some do not.
- 2
Knock out the rest
Tap everyone who fails it. Hitting someone who passes costs a life.
- 3
Survive five rounds
Survivors carry forward and the field narrows.
How to last five rounds
- 1. Certainty first, always. Clear the players you are sure about before touching the ones you are guessing at — a life spent early is a round you never reach.
- 2. A condition you cannot judge is a condition to leave alone. There is no penalty for leaving a doomed player standing until you are sure; the penalty is only for striking a survivor.
- 3. Nationality and position rounds are free. Career-figure rounds are where lives go, so bank the easy eliminations while they are on offer.
- 4. Remember who survived. A player who cleared "played in Serie A" has told you something useful about the next three rounds.
- 5. Later rounds are smaller, not easier. Two eliminations out of five is a higher share than four out of sixteen, and one wrong tap ends a run that was going well.
A worked example
Round one asks for Premier League players and four go out. Round two asks for defenders and three more. By round three you are looking at nine names and a condition about appearances, with two lives left — and the mistake most runs die on is not the hard condition, it is having spent a life in round one on a player whose league history you half-remembered. Leave the uncertain ones standing; the round only ends when everyone who genuinely fails has gone, and there is no clock.
About the authors
Survivor is maintained by the PlayFutbol Data Team. Every condition is one of the curated predicates the Bingo board already uses, evaluated against the same reconciled career data — so a round about appearances is asking about figures that survived the Wikidata rebuild, not the invented ones they replaced.
A correct elimination marked wrong? Email data@playfutbol.app
Frequently asked questions
What is Survivor?
A daily football elimination game. 16 players, 5 rounds. Each round announces a condition and you knock out everyone who does not meet it; whoever survives carries into the next round.
How do I lose a life?
By knocking out someone who DOES meet the condition. You have 3, and the run ends when they are gone.
How is it scored?
Rounds cleared are worth most, lives left are the tiebreak. It is deliberately not scored on how many players remain at the end — that number is decided by the board before you click anything, so rewarding it would reward the generator rather than you.
How is this different from False 9?
False 9 asks the question once. Here the survivors of round one face a new condition in round two, and so on for five rounds, so the field narrows from sixteen to one or two. The tightening is the game.
Where do the conditions come from?
The same 113 curated conditions Futbol Bingo uses, across 7 categories — nationality, position, club, league, age, career figures and combinations of those.
How is the board built?
Backwards, and it has to be. Drawing sixteen players and then hunting for five conditions that eliminate a sensible number each produced a usable sequence on one day in sixty. The chain is grown first against the whole roster, then the squad is filled in from the players who fall at each specific round.
Why did a random draw not work?
Two reasons, both fatal. A random chain of five conditions usually has an empty intersection — "Brazilian" and "German" is already nobody — so nothing survives to round three. And even with a compatible chain, a random sixteen mostly produces rounds that eliminate everybody or nobody.
How many players get knocked out each round?
Between two and six, by construction. Measured across sixty days the curve runs about 4, 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2.5 — a tightening rather than a cliff, which is the property the whole build order exists to guarantee.
Can a round be impossible?
No. Every round is checked to leave at least one survivor and to remove at least two, on the assembled squad rather than in theory.
Does everyone get the same squad?
Yes. A seeded generator gives every player worldwide the same sixteen and the same five conditions for a given date.
Is there an archive?
Yes, the last 30 days are replayable and do not affect your daily streak.
Is it free?
Yes. No signup, no paywall, no ads inside the game.
Related daily football games
- False 9 — the same question, asked once.
- Futbol Bingo — the same conditions, on a 5×5 board.
- Twenty Questions — narrow the field by asking instead of striking.
Survivor is maintained by the PlayFutbol Data Team · 113 conditions · 5 rounds · Last audited September 14, 2026 · Report corrections at support@playfutbol.app.