Football
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146 free Football trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
15 free Football trivia questions with answers. Football trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is American Football trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01In American football, how many points is a touchdown worth?
6
A touchdown earns 6 points today, but until 1898 it was worth only four, one fewer than a kicked field goal. It reached six in 1912, after the field goal had been cut to three.
Q 02Through the 2025 NFL season, which two franchises were tied for the most Super Bowl wins?
Patriots and Steelers
The Patriots and Steelers each had six. Pittsburgh won four in six seasons in the 1970s, before New England had won any, and the Patriots then took all of theirs between the 2001 and 2018 seasons.
Q 03Which quarterback holds the NFL record for most career regular season passing yards?
Tom Brady
Tom Brady was the 199th pick of the 2000 draft and began as a fourth-string quarterback. He got his chance when Drew Bledsoe was injured in 2001 and finished with 89,214 regular-season passing yards.
Q 04Which NFL franchise, founded as the Morgan Athletic Club, is America's oldest continuously run pro football team?
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals took their name from the cardinal-red jerseys of their early years, not from the bird. They have moved home twice since, reaching the desert in 1988.
Q 05In American football, what is a defense that swaps one linebacker for an extra defensive back called?
Nickel
Nickel is the five-cent coin, so the fifth defensive back is the nickelback. Add a sixth and the package becomes a dime, named simply as the next coin up.
Q 06Which nation hosted and won the inaugural World Cup in 1930?
Uruguay
Uruguay won the final 4-2 at Montevideo's Estadio Centenario, a stadium built for the tournament and named for the national centenary the country was celebrating that year.
Q 07Including the goalkeeper, how many players does one team field in a standard association football match?
11
11 is the maximum, and one of them must be the goalkeeper. A match cannot start or continue once a side has fewer than seven, so a fifth red card ends the game.
Q 08Which player holds the record for the most Ballon d'Or awards, with eight to his name?
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi has eight to Cristiano Ronaldo's five. Barcelona committed to signing him at 13 on a paper napkin, agreeing to pay for the daily growth-hormone injections his family could no longer afford.
Q 09In association football, which restart follows when a defender puts the ball behind their own goal line, wide of the posts?
Corner kick
A corner kick could not legally be scored from directly until a law change in 1924. One scored that way months later against the reigning Olympic champions is why Spanish speakers still call it an 'Olympic goal'.
Q 10In association football, which piece of protective kit is compulsory for every player under the Laws?
Shin guards
Shin guards are credited to Nottingham Forest's Sam Weller Widdowson, who in 1874 cut down a pair of cricket pads and strapped them outside his stockings.
Q 11Which quarterback led the Kansas City Chiefs to three Super Bowl wins between 2020 and 2024?
Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes was named MVP of all three games. His father pitched for 11 seasons in baseball's major leagues, and the Detroit Tigers drafted the son in 2014, but he chose football.
Q 12What rule penalizes an attacker who is nearer the goal line than both the ball and the second-to-last opponent?
Offside
Offside once required three opponents between an attacker and the goal line. When the law was cut to two in 1925, defences were caught out and goals in the English league jumped the very next season.
Q 13Whose extra-time volley won the 2014 World Cup final for Germany?
Mario Götze
Q 21Pelé's real first name was chosen in honour of which American inventor?
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was the inspiration, and the boy was proud of it. By his own account he wanted to be called Edson, and once punched a classmate for calling him Pelé, earning a two-day suspension.
Q 22Which AFL team owner coined the term 'Super Bowl', reportedly inspired by his children's Super Ball toy?
Lamar Hunt
Lamar Hunt wrote to the NFL commissioner in 1966 that he had 'kiddingly' called it the Super Bowl, a name that 'obviously can be improved upon'. Nobody improved on it, and it became official with the third game.
Q 23The Super Bowl trophy is named after which coach, winner of the first two Super Bowls?
Vince Lombardi
Mario Götze came off the bench shortly before the end of normal time, then chested down André Schürrle's cross and volleyed in the only goal of the final.
Q 14What name did Diego Maradona give the goal he punched in against England at the 1986 World Cup?
The Hand of God
The Hand of God was Maradona's own name for the punched goal; four minutes later in the same quarter-final he scored the 'Goal of the Century', dribbling past five England players.
Q 15Which club, founded in October 1857, is the world's oldest existing independent football club?
Sheffield F.C.
Sheffield F.C. at first played only among its own members, splitting into sides such as Married v Singles. Its own rules of 1858 came five years before the Football Association existed.
Q 16Ottorino Barassi hid the World Cup trophy during World War II in what, kept under his bed?
A shoebox
A shoebox kept the trophy out of sight after Barassi smuggled it from a Rome bank to stop occupying troops seizing it. The war still cost football its 1942 and 1946 tournaments.
Q 17A week after the World Cup trophy was stolen in London in 1966, who found it wrapped in newspaper?
A pet dog
A pet dog called Pickles sniffed out the parcel beside a parked car while out with his owner in south London. The same trophy was stolen again in 1983 and has never been recovered.
Q 18Whose €222 million move to PSG in 2017 more than doubled the world transfer record?
Neymar
Neymar's fee was the release clause written into his Barcelona contract. His lawyers simply paid it in full, and eight years later it was still the world record.
Q 19World Cup Willie, the first World Cup mascot in 1966, was which animal in a Union Jack shirt?
A lion
A lion, Willie was one of the first mascots tied to any major sporting event, and he started a habit: every World Cup since has had a mascot of its own.
Q 20Pelé was 17 when he scored twice in the 1958 World Cup final against which host nation?
Sweden
Sweden lost 5-2 at home. Pelé had arrived with a knee injury and sat out the first two matches, yet he left as the youngest World Cup winner and went on to be the only player with three titles.
Vince Lombardi died of cancer in September 1970, and the league renamed its trophy in his memory. The first to carry his name went to the Baltimore Colts a few months later.
Q 24The Super Bowl ranks second for American food consumption behind which holiday?
Thanksgiving dinner
Thanksgiving dinner is the biggest eating occasion in the United States; Super Bowl Sunday ranks second, when Americans eat well over a billion chicken wings.
Q 25The first American football game, in November 1869, pitted Princeton against which college?
Rutgers
Rutgers won 6-4 in a game that looked far more like soccer: 25 players a side kicked a round ball, and carrying or throwing it was against the rules.
Q 26Which Yale figure, 'Father of American Football', created the snap, line of scrimmage and downs?
Walter Camp
Walter Camp's scrimmage let a team keep the ball as long as it liked, and Princeton duly held it for a whole half against Yale. He answered with downs: gain five yards in three tries or hand the ball over.
Q 27Jerry Rice, the NFL's all-time leading receiver, played his college football at which small school?
Mississippi Valley State
Mississippi Valley State was little known when the 49ers drafted him in 1985. Rice grew up helping his bricklayer father, catching bricks on top of the scaffolding, work he said taught him the meaning of hard work.
Q 28Jay Berwanger, the first Heisman Trophy winner in 1935, starred for which university's original 'Monsters of the Midway'?
Chicago
The University of Chicago's star was also the first player ever picked in an NFL draft, yet never played a down: he asked for $25,000 over two years, was refused, and sold foam rubber instead.
Q 29Through 2024, which university had produced the most Heisman Trophy winners, with eight?
USC
USC had eight through 2024, from Mike Garrett in 1965 to Caleb Williams in 2022. Reggie Bush gave up his 2005 trophy in 2010 over gifts from agents, and the Heisman Trust handed it back in 2024.
Q 30The Champions League anthem, written in 1992, adapts a coronation anthem by which composer?
Handel
Handel's Zadok the Priest, sung at British coronations, was reworked by the composer Tony Britten. He was asked for something classical because the Three Tenors had been such a hit at the 1990 World Cup.