November 2022 - Soccer World Cup

Tap or click on any hint box to view it.

Location: Kicking off at the movies

  1. Try finding the movie title that goes with each poster. You can use anything in the movie poster to help you search. The dates are there to help you match titles with spaces.
  2. NORTH BY NORTHWEST, SHORT CUTS, SWEET HOME ALABAMA, THE HATE U GIVE, VICTOR/VICTORIA
  3. The movie posters have country flags covering the titles. What countries are those?
  4. NORWAY, QATAR, SWEDEN, HAITI, SYRIA,
  5. Do you notice anything about the country names and the boxed spaces in the titles? Try saying them out loud.
  6. There's one final step to go from a 5-letter word to a 7-letter solution. The solution is a country name.
  7. UKRAINE (U+CRANE)

Player Matchups

  1. Notice that the flavortext says that the Gray team names are MIXED UP and INSERTED.
  2. Start with the goalies, since you know they go together. If you rearrange the letters in MISTAKEN you can insert them into "TURN" to make a country name.
  3. Use the same process for the rest of the players. Keep the order of the White team players.
  4. SOLOMON ISLANDS, SURINAME, PORTUGAL, DENMARK, HONDURAS, TURKMENISTAN
  5. VIETNAM, ERITREA, MONACO, BAHRAIN, BANGLADESH
  6. The number on the Gray jersey indicates which letter of the country name to use.
  7. SEPARATIONS

Heading

  1. Use the clues to the left of each player pair to fill in the boxes for the players on the left.
  2. Use the clues in the clue bank to to fill in the boxes for the players on the right.
  3. The letters for each player pair will match except for the letters in the top boxes.
  4. FENNEL-KENNEL, RON-ION, EASE-CASE, EARL-KARL
  5. DINGO-BINGO, EDAM-ADAM, AID-LID, DAUGHTER-LAUGHTER
  6. Fill in the blank spaces below the players with the letters that are in the top boxes.
  7. BACKFIELD

Mascots

  1. All of the creatures are made up of characters from the pigpen cipher. Some parts could be overlapping so you might have to try a few options before getting it right.
  2. The letters in the first creature are O, T, E V. Anagram those letters to get VOTE, which matches clue 6.
  3. VOTE, CHIME, SLEDS, NEIGH, CAVING
  4. REVIVE, VEXES, TEACUP, RESETS
  5. ASSISTING

Rules & regulations

  1. Each clue follows a different rule for what is allowed and what is not allowed.
  2. All of the rules have to do with the spelling of the words, not with the meaning of the words.
  3. If a word in the "How about..." column follows the rule, enter it into the "Can do" column. If it doesn't follow the rule, enter it into the "Can't do" column.
  4. In the first clue, the three things that players can see all have a silent letter in them: (G)NAT, DE(B)T, AND G(H)OST. Since LAM(B) also has a silent letter, enter it into the "Can do" column so that the M is in the rectangle.
  5. Silent letter, plural is the same as singular, ends with -es, three vowels in a row.
  6. Three sets of double letters, has a number hidden in the word, starts and ends with same letter, has a cardinal direction hidden in the word.
  7. For each clue, compare each "How about..." word against the rule, and enter it into the "Can do" or "Can't do" column.
  8. Can do: LAMB, SALMON, QUEASY, TENT, SHALLOWEST. Can't do: UNIFORMS, MOODINESS, PASSION.
  9. MARADONA

Meta: Wordle Cup

  1. You need to figure out how to place your four solutions into the Wordle squares. Notice that the flavortext emphasizes taking a "meaningful selection."
  2. Each puzzle solution has a shorter word embedded in the longer answer.
  3. RATIO, FIELD, STING, RADON
  4. With some logic deduction, figure out which letter goes where in the last word.
  5. FINAL

Bonus: Cleats

  1. We need to determine the jersey number and cleat pattern for each player.
  2. For a step-by-step solution, see separate file
  3. The cleat patterns give a 5-bit binary letter for each player with black=1, white=0.
  4. Ordered by jersey number, the 7 cleat patterns spell PENALTY