30 Hard Football Quiz Questions (With Answers) for Proper Anoraks

These 30 hard football quiz questions are for the person who corrects the quizmaster. Three rounds of ten: records and oddities, finals and line-ups, then shirts and transfers. Every answer has been checked, and every "name one" comes with its full accepted list and cut-off date.

If you want something gentler to warm up, start with our 50 football quiz questions and answers and come back when you're loose.

Round 1: Records and oddities

1. Who scored the fastest hat-trick in Premier League history, and how quickly?
Answer: Sadio Mané, in 2 minutes 56 seconds, for Southampton against Aston Villa on 16 May 2015.

2. Which club finished the 2007-08 Premier League season with just 11 points?
Answer: Derby County.

3. Kevin Phillips won the European Golden Shoe for 1999-2000 with 30 league goals. Which club was he playing for?
Answer: Sunderland.

4. Name a player with seven or more Premier League red cards (totals at the end of 2024-25).
Answer: Patrick Vieira, Duncan Ferguson, Richard Dunne, Roy Keane, Lee Cattermole, Vinnie Jones or Alan Smith.

5. Name a club that has been champions of all four tiers of the Football League (any era, to the end of 2024-25).
Answer: Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley, Preston North End, Portsmouth or Sheffield United.

6. Name a club that has spent exactly one season in the English top flight (to the end of 2024-25).
Answer: Barnsley, Swindon Town, Carlisle United, Northampton Town, Leyton Orient or Glossop North End.

7. Name a club that lost Football League status without being relegated, 1951 to 2025 (voted out, resigned, folded or expelled; Port Vale's 1968 expulsion excluded).
Answer: New Brighton, Gateshead, Bradford Park Avenue, Barrow, Workington, Southport, Accrington Stanley, Aldershot, Maidstone United or Bury.

8. Name a player who scored a Premier League hat-trick as a substitute (1992-93 to 2024-25).
Answer: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Robert Earnshaw, Emmanuel Adebayor, Steven Naismith, Romelu Lukaku or Son Heung-min.

9. Name a club that reached 100 points in a Championship season (2004-05 to 2024-25).
Answer: Reading, Newcastle United, Leicester City, Burnley or Leeds United.

10. Name a player sent off in an FA Cup final (finals up to and including 2025).
Answer: Kevin Moran, José Antonio Reyes, Pablo Zabaleta, Chris Smalling, Victor Moses or Mateo Kovačić.

Round 2: Finals and line-ups

11. In the 1988 FA Cup final, Dave Beasant became the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in a Wembley FA Cup final. Whose kick did he save?
Answer: John Aldridge.

12. Name one of Wimbledon's starting XI in that final, a 1-0 win over Liverpool.
Answer: Dave Beasant, Clive Goodyear, Terry Phelan, Vinnie Jones, Eric Young, Andy Thorn, Dennis Wise, Lawrie Sanchez, Alan Cork, John Fashanu or Terry Gibson.

13. Arsenal needed to win by two at Anfield on 26 May 1989. Michael Thomas got the second in stoppage time. Who got the first?
Answer: Alan Smith, with a header early in the second half.

14. Name a player who appeared for Aston Villa in the 1982 European Cup final against Bayern Munich (starters and substitutes).
Answer: Jimmy Rimmer, Nigel Spink, Kenny Swain, Gary Williams, Ken McNaught, Allan Evans, Dennis Mortimer, Des Bremner, Gordon Cowans, Tony Morley, Gary Shaw or Peter Withe.

15. Who headed Greece's winner in the Euro 2004 final against Portugal?
Answer: Angelos Charisteas.

16. Name a Denmark starter in the Euro 92 final, a 2-0 win over Germany in Gothenburg.
Answer: Peter Schmeichel, John Sivebaek, Kent Nielsen, Lars Olsen, Torben Piechnik, Kim Christofte, John Jensen, Kim Vilfort, Henrik Larsen, Brian Laudrup or Flemming Povlsen.

17. In the 2008 Champions League final shoot-out in Moscow, whose kick did Edwin van der Sar save to win it for Manchester United?
Answer: Nicolas Anelka.

18. Name a player who took a kick in the England v Germany shoot-out at Euro 96 (scored or missed).
Answer: Alan Shearer, David Platt, Stuart Pearce, Paul Gascoigne, Teddy Sheringham, Gareth Southgate, Thomas Hässler, Thomas Strunz, Stefan Reuter, Christian Ziege, Stefan Kuntz or Andreas Möller.

19. Name a scorer in Germany's 7-1 win over Brazil at the 2014 World Cup (either side).
Answer: Thomas Müller, Miroslav Klose, Toni Kroos, Sami Khedira, André Schürrle or Oscar.

20. Name a player sent off in a men's World Cup final (finals up to and including 2022).
Answer: Pedro Monzón, Gustavo Dezotti, Marcel Desailly, Zinedine Zidane or John Heitinga.

Round 3: Shirts and transfers

All shirt questions mean a player who wore that number in a Premier League (or La Liga) match. For the stories behind the famous ones, see our guide to famous football shirt numbers.

21. A player who wore Arsenal's number 14 in the Premier League (1993-94 to 2024-25).
Answer: Martin Keown, Thierry Henry, Theo Walcott, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or Eddie Nketiah.

22. A player who wore Leeds' number 9 in the Premier League (1993-94 to 2024-25).
Answer: Brian Deane, Ian Rush, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Mark Viduka or Patrick Bamford.

23. A player who wore Spurs' number 7 in the Premier League (1993-94 to 2024-25).
Answer: Nick Barmby, Ruel Fox, Darren Anderton, Simon Davies, Paul Stalteri, Aaron Lennon or Son Heung-min.

24. A goalkeeper who wore Manchester United's number 1 in the Premier League (1993-94 to 2024-25).
Answer: Peter Schmeichel, Mark Bosnich, Fabien Barthez, Tim Howard, Edwin van der Sar, David de Gea or Altay Bayındır.

25. A player who wore Barcelona's number 10 in La Liga (fixed squad numbers era, 1995-96 to 2024-25).
Answer: Ángel Cuéllar, Giovanni, Jari Litmanen, Rivaldo, Juan Román Riquelme, Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi or Ansu Fati.

26. Newcastle signed Alan Shearer for a world record £15 million in 1996. From which club?
Answer: Blackburn Rovers.

27. Name a player whose move set a new British transfer record, 2000 to 2025 (paid or received by a UK club, add-ons count).
Answer: Rio Ferdinand, Juan Sebastián Verón, Andriy Shevchenko, Robinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Torres, Gareth Bale, Ángel Di María, Paul Pogba, Philippe Coutinho, Jack Grealish, Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak or Marc Overmars.

28. Name a player who moved directly between Arsenal and Manchester United, either way (permanent moves, 1992-93 to 2025).
Answer: Mikaël Silvestre, Robin van Persie, Danny Welbeck, Alexis Sánchez or Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

29. Name a player Chelsea signed in summer 2003, Roman Abramovich's first window (permanent signings only).
Answer: Glen Johnson, Geremi, Wayne Bridge, Damien Duff, Juan Sebastián Verón, Joe Cole, Adrian Mutu, Hernán Crespo, Claude Makélélé, Alexei Smertin, Neil Sullivan, Marco Ambrosio or Jürgen Macho.

30. Name a player who moved directly from Southampton to Liverpool (permanent moves, 1992-93 to 2025).
Answer: Peter Crouch, Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Nathaniel Clyne, Sadio Mané or Virgil van Dijk.

Want the full story of question 27? Our British transfer record history runs through every record move.

Why "name one" questions are harder than they look

On paper, "name one" sounds generous. Seven right answers, eleven, sixteen: how hard can it be?

The catch is how memory works. Recognising a name on a list is easy. Pulling one out of thin air, against a clock, is not. Under pressure your brain hands you the most famous answer first, and that is exactly the answer everybody else gets handed too. Ask a room for a Manchester United number 1 and the famous names arrive long before anyone remembers Mark Bosnich.

Then there are the cut-offs. A hard football quiz lives or dies on its small print: "starting XI only", "permanent moves only", "up to the end of 2024-25". The trap answer is often a famous name that sits just outside the rules, like a substitute in a final or a player who only arrived on loan.

How rarity scoring works

Ball Boffin turns that problem into the game. Each day there are seven name-one prompts, 20 seconds each, one answer per prompt. Every correct answer scores, but not equally:

So the safe answer keeps you alive and the brave answer wins you the day. Your total places you in a league of the English pyramid, from Sunday League up to the Premier League at 400 points or more. There are over 800 prompts in the bank, so you won't see the same ones every week.

If you'd rather work out a player from clues than name one from a list, try guess the footballer. Otherwise, the next seven prompts are waiting in today's quiz.