Keeping with the theme of UEFA European Championship 2016, Facebook has unlocked a secret football game hidden in messenger.
It’s addictive, heavy on the thumbs, and requires some serious patience (you’ll see why).
Just like the basketball game Facebook released in March, unlocking it is fairly simple – all you need to do it start a conversation with a friend in your phone’s Facebook Messenger, send them a football emoji and tap on it.
Our little ? Messenger game we launched for March Madness and the NBA season was played over 1 billion times (!) over the course of the last 3 months. Since you loved it so much, and it's the Euro 2016 & Copa America… You get where I'm going… ⚽️⚽️⚽️! It's on!
Posted by David Marcus on Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Released to coincide with Euro 2016 and Copa America, it works more like a virtual game of keep ups than actual football. And the aim – like any other game – is to challenge your mates (or yourself) to see who can get the highest score.
If you score more than ten in a row, the game ups its difficulty by throwing in distractions. The higher the score, the more distractions and happy emojis you get.
Also make sure you update your messenger, otherwise you’ll just be tapping an emoji and will be sorely disappointed.