The Athletic has launched a World Cup-themed spin on the Connections puzzle format, and the first edition landed on June 11, 2026. If you've come here for help, you're in the right place — but be warned, full answers are below and spoilers are coming.
How the game works
Connections: Soccer Edition drops 16 words on a board. Your job is to sort them into four groups of four, each sharing a hidden link. You get three mistakes before it's game over. Each category carries a colour-coded difficulty: yellow (easiest) through to purple (hardest).
Today's puzzle — rated 3 out of 5 — had a few genuine traps. Words like REAL and PREMIER could plausibly belong to more than one category, which is exactly the kind of misdirection that makes this format work.
The answers for puzzle No. 1
Here are the four categories and the words that belong to each:
- Yellow — Names for the sport in different countries: FOOTBALL, SOCCER, CALCIO, FÚTBOL
- Green — First word in the name of a top European league: SERIE, PREMIER, LA, LIGUE
- Blue — Cities where Cristiano Ronaldo has played club football: RIYADH, TURIN, MANCHESTER, MADRID
- Purple — Currencies of 2026 World Cup host countries: DOLLAR, EURO, REAL, WON
The Ronaldo category was clean once you committed to it — four distinct cities across four clubs, spanning Old Trafford to Al-Nassr. The currency category was the real sting. REAL as a Brazilian currency, not a Spanish football club, is the kind of lateral thinking that separates a clean sweep from an embarrassing fourth mistake.
The puzzles are created daily by Will Jeanes, senior editor at The Athletic, and a new one drops at midnight in your local time zone. Given this is tied to the World Cup window, expect the difficulty and the football knowledge threshold to climb as the tournament progresses.
