Outside the Box

Outside the Box is POACH's daily football quiz, played as a penalty shootout. Seven questions, seven pens, 25 seconds a pen. Any right answer scores, but the obvious one barely troubles the keeper. The rarer your answer, the better the finish, all the way up to a Panenka. It is free, and everyone gets the same seven questions each day.

How Outside the Box works

1. STEP UP. Each pen is a football question with lots of right answers, like the clubs a striker played for or the winners of a cup. You get 25 seconds to name one.
2. ANY RIGHT ANSWER. Wrong guesses are free, so keep typing until one goes in. Your first right answer is the one that counts. Run the clock down and the keeper saves it.
3. THE RARER, THE BETTER. Every right answer has a tier set in advance, from the bottom of the net to the top corner: Obvious, Decent, Side netting, In off the post, Top bins and Panenka. A Panenka is worth 100 points, and a perfect shootout scores 700.

Say the pen is clubs Peter Crouch played for. Liverpool or Stoke would go in, but so would everyone else's. Dulwich Hamlet, where he went on loan as a teenager, is the kind of shout that finds the top corner.

Your answers are checked on our server, so the lists never reach your phone before the pen. Nothing is shown during the shootout. At full time you can see every right answer to every pen, Panenkas included, and how many players said each one.

A few tips

• Skip the first name that comes to mind. Everyone else thought of it too. If there is time on the clock, go looking for a rarer one before you type the obvious answer.
• Bank it when the clock runs low. Obvious still scores. With a few seconds left, a sure answer beats a save.
• Think sideways. Loan spells, short stints, cult heroes and one-season wonders are where the deep cuts live.
• Use the free guesses. A wrong answer costs nothing but time, so a half-remembered name is always worth a go.

Questions people ask

Is Outside the Box free?

Yes. It is free to play every day. You do not need an account: your results are kept on your own device. Signing in with Google is optional and keeps your streak on every device.

Is there a new one every day?

Yes. Seven new pens go live at midnight UTC (midnight in the UK, 1am during British Summer Time), and everyone plays the same seven.

Where do the answers come from?

From public lists, such as Wikipedia's, which are credited on each day's answers page. The tiers are set before the day goes live, so your score is instant and never changes.