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How the fixture list is generated for a football tournament

Where your fixtures come from, how their kick-off times are worked out, and why knockout matches already have times.

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Written by Maab Saleem

Scoryboard builds the whole fixture list for you when you save the format. You never create a match by hand.

What you get depends on the template. Group & knockout phase gives you dated, Scheduled fixtures. Group phase only does not - see Group phase only is different below. This article's screenshots are a Group & knockout tournament.

Where the fixtures are

  1. Open the tournament and select Schedule.

    The Schedule tab of a football tournament, showing the Group Phase with Group A and Group B.

  2. Read a group's list. Every team in the group plays every other team once. On a Group & knockout tournament each match already has a date and a kick-off time.

    The Group A card with six fixtures, kicking off at 10:00, 10:10, 10:20, 10:30, 10:40 and 10:50.

  3. Read one fixture. It carries the date, the kick-off time, the pitch and the referee.

    One fixture card with its kick-off time outlined.

  4. Select Knockout Phase to see the rest.

    The phase tabs with Knockout Phase outlined, beside the search box and Export Fixtures.

  5. Read the bracket. The knockout matches already have times, even though nobody has qualified yet.

    The knockout bracket: Quarter-finals, Semi-finals and the Final, with slots reading TBD and Winner Match C1.

How the times are worked out

The first match starts at the tournament's own start time. Each match after it starts when the one before it would have finished.

  • The step between kick-offs is the match duration plus the gap between matches.

  • A new tournament has no gap, so 10-minute matches kick off at 10:00, 10:10, 10:20 and so on.

  • The second group starts where the first one finishes. The knockout starts after both groups.

To change any of this, see "Bulk-scheduling a football group, and the gap between matches".

What you will see

On a Group & knockout tournament, group matches are Scheduled. Knockout matches are Incomplete until both their teams are known, and their slots read TBD or Winner Match C1.

Group phase only is different

A Group phase only tournament is a round-robin league, and it is scheduled differently. Saved at the format screen's own defaults, it generates every fixture but gives none of them a date.

  • Every fixture arrives Incomplete, not Scheduled.

  • None of them has a date or a kick-off time. The date, time, pitch and referee cells all read -.

  • The Schedule tab splits into two bands. WEEK 1 is the week the fixtures would be played in, and it is empty. UNSCHEDULED holds all of them.

This is not a fault. The format screen's League schedule block decides when a round-robin's fixtures are played, and its Preferred match day(s) start with no day ticked. With no day to put a fixture on, every fixture stays in UNSCHEDULED.

To give them dates, go back to Format, tick at least one day under Preferred match day(s), and save again. If the league has fewer slots than fixtures, Scoryboard says Schedule capacity exceeded and offers to add the extra weeks.

Each fixture then takes one slot on one of your chosen days, a week apart, at your daily start time.

If it does not work

  • There are no fixtures. The format has not been saved yet. See "Choosing a format for a football tournament".

  • The fixtures are there but every one is Incomplete, under UNSCHEDULED. This is a Group phase only tournament. That is what it does - see Group phase only is different.

  • A fixture has only one team. The group has more slots than teams. See "Why two football fixtures clash, and fixtures showing only one team".

  • Two fixtures start at the same time. Same article.

  • You see rounds instead of a flat list. That is the padel layout - see "How the fixture list is generated for a padel tournament".

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