Football and geography, read through the data behind the games: record scorers, journeymen, rivalries, borders and the world in numbers.
Every Triviverse game is built from real records: Transfermarkt for football, and Natural Earth and the World Bank for geography. These articles go through the same records looking for the stories in them. Each one says where its figures come from and the date they were checked, and every number in it can be traced back to its source.
Craig Bellamy scored for seven Premier League clubs. Marcus Bent played for eight. Here is who has moved around the most since 1992.
Ryan Giggs played 632 Premier League games, all for Manchester United. Only 25 players have reached 300 games for a single Premier League club and never played for another.
Erling Haaland’s 36 in 2022/23 is the record. Alan Shearer appears three times. Here are the best single seasons, and what they have in common.
Four players have played Premier League football for both Arsenal and Tottenham. Only two have done it for Liverpool and Manchester United. The full lists, rivalry by rivalry.
Mohamed Salah is Egypt’s, Heung-min Son is South Korea’s, Chris Wood is New Zealand’s. 129 nationalities have played in the Premier League. Here is each country’s record scorer.
The Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1. Thousands of players have played in two. Only four in our records have played in all five, and three of them scored in every one.
Messi’s 474 in La Liga. Gerd Müller’s 365 in the Bundesliga. Silvio Piola’s 274 in Serie A. How the five league records compare, and who might break them.
From Roberto Baggio’s move to Juventus to Neymar’s €222m. How the most expensive transfer of each year has grown, and the 15 biggest fees ever paid.
James Milner holds the record with 658, ahead of Gareth Barry and Ryan Giggs. The 20 players with the most Premier League games, and how they lasted so long.
Every Triviverse question comes from the same database of real football records. How that data is collected, how a puzzle is chosen, and how we make sure it is fair.
China and Russia each border 14 countries. Brazil, Germany and DR Congo border nine. Which countries have the most neighbours, and why?
Lesotho and Papua New Guinea are connected by land, but only just. Even by the shortest route, you cross 18 borders and pass through 17 countries to get from one to the other.
Canada, Portugal, Denmark, Qatar, South Korea and Papua New Guinea each have only one land neighbour. So do the United Kingdom and Ireland, with each other. The full list and the stories behind it.
Monaco packs more than 18,000 people into each square kilometre. Mongolia has just over two. World Bank figures for 2024 on the countries at each extreme.
Russia is almost twice the size of the next-largest country. India has overtaken China in population. And Monaco is smaller than New York’s Central Park.
A child born in Monaco can expect to live past 86. In Nigeria and Chad the figure is about 55. World Bank estimates for 2024, and what lies behind the gap.