The Heatmap

How to play The Heatmap

You get one heatmap. It shows every touch a player made across one tournament or one league season, drawn on a pitch with his team attacking left to right. Name the player. You have six guesses.

Every miss unlocks a clue. First his position, then his appearances and goals in that competition, then his nationality, then his team, then his shirt number where the data has it. Every guess you make is also checked against the answer on four things: same nationality, same team, same line of the pitch, and whether he played in that competition. Green means a match. Use it to narrow the field.

Reading a heatmap

A full-back lives on one touchline and gets forward in the attacking third. A holding midfielder is a blob in front of his own box. A number 10 drifts into the half-spaces. A striker who drops deep leaves a trail back to halfway. A winger who cuts inside burns the corner of the box. The shape tells you the role. The side tells you which foot. The competition tells you the year.

Where the data comes from

Heatmaps are built from StatsBomb open data: every on-ball event with a pitch location. That covers the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Euro 2020 and Euro 2024, Copa America 2024, AFCON 2023, the 2015-16 Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 seasons, every Barcelona La Liga season from 2004-05 to 2020-21, PSG in 2021-22 and 2022-23, Arsenal's 2003-04 Invincibles, Leverkusen's unbeaten 2023-24 and Messi's first Inter Miami games. Tournament players need a few full games of data. League players need around fifteen.

Scoring and streaks

First-guess solves score 100. Every extra guess costs points. Solve it on consecutive days to build your streak. Your stats, streak and best score save on your device and sync to your account when you sign in. Every past heatmap stays playable in the archive, but only today's counts.

The Heatmap FAQ