The Daily XI: one board, the whole world, every day

Every day, Gaffer deals one board to the whole planet. Same players, same budget, same constraints, whether you're in Manchester or Montevideo. The catch is the cards tell you nowt but a name, a club and a season. No ratings. You've got about ninety seconds to draft the best eleven your football knowledge can put together, same as everyone else.

How it works

1. The board deals you eleven berths in a formation, all pulled from one era of the league's history.
2. Every card gives you a name, a club and a season. Never a number. Fame and quality were never the same thing, and that's rather the point.
3. Fill your XI without busting the budget. Some slots come with a draw that says who's eligible, so you work with what you're given.
4. Reveal, and your Gaffer Score out of 99 tells you how close you got to the best XI hiding on that board — your scout's eye, plus what the market and the terraces made of it.
5. Share the card. Same board, ratings still hidden, so your mates play the exact same puzzle and the scores actually mean something.
6. Come back tomorrow. There's a fresh board waiting, and the streak wall doesn't forget.

Most guessing games ask whether you can put a name to a player. This one asks whether you knew how good he actually was, that season, in that shirt. And where we couldn't stand a season up against the record, we left the card out rather than guess. Better an honest gap than a wrong 'un.