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Sports Drinking Game
Fouls, flags and replays - rules for every broadcast.
Sports Drinking Game
The World Cup Drinking Game
The **World Cup drinking game** is a football drinking game built for a tournament, not a match. Every four years...
You watchThe World Cup
You needDrinks + friends
Triggers14 drink rules
Best with2-15 players
The World Cup drinking game is a football drinking game built for a tournament, not a match. Every four years thirty-two (now forty-eight) nations play a group stage where up to four matches a day pile up, then a knockout bracket where a single game can run through extra time and a shootout. Goals are rare and mean everything, so most of the sipping rides on the stuff that happens between them: bookings, VAR checks, a winger going down as if shot, and the commentators reminding you which side lost on penalties last time.
Football's flow is what shapes this sports drinking game. There are no commercial breaks in the play, so triggers fire steadily for forty-five minutes, stop dead at halftime, then pick up again. A nil-nil group game gives you corners, cards and replays; a knockout tie that goes to a penalty shootout gives you the tensest five minutes on television, with a sip on every kick. Which stage you are watching changes the pace more than which teams are playing.
How to set it up
- Pick a nation to back for the whole tournament before the first group game, and stick with it - if your country did not qualify, adopt one and defend the choice in the group chat.
- For a group-stage matchday, choose one kickoff for the full list and treat the others as background with only the goal and red-card rules on.
- Before a knockout tie, agree what happens in a shootout: the standard call is a sip on every kick and a drink for the whole room on the deciding one, since a shootout is the highest-density five minutes the tournament produces.
- Turn the commentary up and put the anthems on the big screen - the pre-match anthems are the cue for the rules to start, and the pundits' mentions of past World Cups are a trigger you cannot catch from the kitchen.
The rules: drink when…
The heart of the game: 14 triggers. Read them out before you press play, keep the ones your group likes, cut any that would fire every minute, and remember that a "drink" is one sip.
| When this happens… | …you drink |
|---|---|
| A team scores a goal | Drink for 3 seconds |
| A shot misses or the keeper makes a save | Sip |
| The referee shows a yellow card | Sip |
| The referee shows a red card | Sip twice |
| The commentators mention VAR or a review starts | Sip |
| A slow-motion replay is shown | Sip |
| A corner kick or free kick is taken | Sip |
| The broadcast cuts to a manager on the touchline | Sip |
| A player goes down and stays down | Sip |
| The camera shows fans in the crowd | Sip |
| The commentators mention a player's country or a past World Cup | Sip |
| A substitution is made | Sip |
| Stoppage time or extra time is announced | Sip |
| The match goes to a penalty shootout | Sip twice |
How to play
Match your list to the stage
A single group game gets the full list. A knockout tie with extra time and penalties in play is a longer night, so drop the replay and free-kick rules and keep goals, cards, VAR and substitutions. A full group-stage matchday of three or four kickoffs gets about six triggers and no more.
Sip through the ninety
There are no breaks in a football half, so the sipping is steady rather than bursty: a corner, a booking, the manager screaming on the touchline, a striker rolling around after a tackle. Halftime is your fifteen-minute reset; the fourth official's stoppage-time board is your warning that the last flurry is coming.
Make goals count
Football goals are rare, and in a World Cup group game you might see two. That is why a goal is the three-second drink rather than a sip - a VAR check that rules one out is a sip for the check and a groan for the room, and a goal that stands after a check is worth both.
Handle extra time and penalties
A level knockout game adds two fifteen-minute halves of extra time and then a shootout. Keep the goal rule but drop everything else for extra time, then run the shootout as its own game: a sip on every kick, two on a save or a miss, and the three-second drink on the kick that decides it.
Variations & house rules
Nation loyalties
Each person or side backs a country. Your side drinks whenever your team concedes, and hands out a sip whenever your team scores. In a neutral match, split the room and back the two teams on the pitch - and in the group stage, whoever's nation finishes bottom of its group drinks for their whole group.
Bracket challenge
Before the round of sixteen, everyone fills out the knockout bracket down to the final. Whenever a result busts someone's bracket, that person drinks, and whoever still has their champion alive after each round hands out a sip to everyone whose pick went home.
Scoreline squares
Make a grid of final scorelines (0-0, 1-0, 2-1, and so on). Whoever holds the square that matches the full-time score hands out three sips instead of collecting a pot; in a knockout tie, a shootout result counts as a draw square, so the 1-1 and 0-0 holders split the payout.
Pro tips
Group-stage kickoffs run from lunchtime to late evening in most host time zones, so if you are in for the full day, treat the first two matches as goal-and-red-card only and save the full list for the evening game.
VAR checks are the sneaky high-frequency trigger in a modern World Cup - every disallowed goal, penalty shout and offside toe goes to the screen - so if the room is drinking fast, that is the rule to cut first.
A red card changes everything: the side with ten men sits deep, the shots dry up and the sipping slows, so treat a sending-off as a cue to switch the next fifteen minutes to the card and replay rules only.
Drink responsibly: A World Cup group day of three or four kickoffs with the full list on every match will wear you down, and a knockout tie with extra time and a shootout adds another forty-five minutes of sipping on top of the ninety. A movie-length game adds up fast, so keep the pours small, water between drinks, and swap any trigger for a sip of water whenever you like. See our safety guide.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a World Cup drinking game last?
A group match is about two hours door to door: ninety minutes plus stoppage and a fifteen-minute halftime. A knockout tie that goes the distance adds thirty minutes of extra time and a shootout, so budget two and a half hours. A full group-stage matchday with the rules running on every game is an all-day affair, which is why the list gets shorter for a marathon.
What happens in a penalty shootout?
Treat it as its own five-minute game: a sip on every kick taken, two on a save or a miss, and the three-second drink on the kick that decides it. It comes after 120 minutes of play, so most rooms drop every other rule during extra time to have something left for the shootout.
Which World Cup stage is best for the drinking game?
The last round of the group stage and the round of sixteen. The final group games are played simultaneously, so there is always drama on one of two screens, and the round of sixteen is the first stage where extra time and penalties come in. The final itself is the biggest occasion, but it is often cagey, so the goal rule may fire only once.
Does VAR count as a trigger?
Yes, and it is one of the busiest. Every time the referee draws the screen or the commentators say a check is underway, sip once; if the check overturns a goal, the room groans and sips again. Since VAR arrived at the 2018 tournament it has been the trigger that fires most in a tight knockout game.
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