Match-Day Lineups

A lineup is your match-day squad selection -- a snapshot of a roster bound to a single fixture. It is where you decide who starts, who's on the bench, who's unavailable, and which shape you'll play. Build it once and it stays attached to that game.

What a lineup is

Each lineup ties one fixture -- a game-day or tournament event on your calendar -- to one of your rosters. From there you build the squad: named units of starters, a bench, and an unavailable list. The lineup belongs to that fixture, so next week's game gets its own, separate lineup.

Before you can build one, you need:

• A game-day or tournament event on the calendar. Practice, rest days, travel, and other event types don't take a lineup.
• At least one active roster. The lineup binds the fixture to a squad of athletes, so it needs a roster to draw players from.

Opening the lineup builder

Open the lineup builder straight from the calendar:

1. Find the game-day or tournament event you want to pick a squad for.
2. Open the event's actions menu (the context or ⋯ menu on the event card).
3. Click Manage Lineup.

The Manage Lineup item only appears on fixtures -- you won't see it on training sessions, rest days, or travel events. If your team has more than one roster, the builder shows a roster switcher near the top so you can choose which squad this lineup is for.

Units and the starting unit

A lineup is made up of one or more named units. A unit is a group of starter slots -- for example Starting XI, Line 1, Line 2, Powerplay, Penalty Kill, or D Pair 1.

• Exactly one unit is the starting unit -- the group on the field or ice at kickoff.
• The same athlete can sit in more than one unit. A star can be on Line 1 and the Powerplay; the side panel shows an "in N units" badge so you can see at a glance who's doubled up.
• The units strip at the top of the builder lets you add, rename, and delete units, and promote any unit to "starting".

You must have exactly one starting unit before you can save. The builder tells you if that rule isn't met and keeps the Save button disabled until it is.

Building a unit

Pick the unit you want to work on from the units strip, then fill its slots. There are three ways to get started:

• Pick a Formation -- click the Formation button and choose a preset. The preset seeds the unit's slots with positions already laid out. See Formation Presets for the built-in library and how to save your own.
• Accept an AI suggestion -- let the AI proposer build the units for you (Club plan, covered below).
• Build it slot-by-slot -- click Add slot to append empty slots one at a time, then label each position yourself.

Every slot has an editable position label -- "GK", "CM", "LW", and so on -- so you can relabel positions pulled from a formation without rebuilding the unit.

Filling slots with players

Players come from the Roster side panel on the right. There are two ways to drop a player into a slot:

• Drag and drop -- grab a player by the drag handle and drop them onto a slot.
• Pick -- click Pick on an empty slot and choose an athlete from the picker.

You can clear a slot to empty it, or swap the athlete in a filled slot for someone else. Athletes already placed somewhere in the lineup are dimmed in the side panel so you can see who's still free.

List view and canvas view

A toggle near the top of the builder switches between two views of the active unit:

• List view -- a row per slot. This is where you set position labels and availability.
• Canvas view -- a visual layout showing player positions on the playing surface.

Canvas view needs slot positions to draw. If the unit was built from a formation preset, the positions are already there; if you built it slot-by-slot, switch to list view or pick a formation to seed positions.

Bench and unavailable

Below the units, two lists are lineup-global -- they belong to the whole lineup, not to any single unit:

• Bench -- click Add bench slot to add bench places, then fill them the same way you fill unit slots.
• Unavailable -- athletes you've marked unavailable for this fixture show up here.

Availability

Each slot row in list view lets you mark an athlete available or out for the fixture, and shows their current status -- an out player is flagged and a late arrival carries a badge. Availability is recorded per athlete, per fixture -- and it is shared across all of that athlete's rosters. If a player is hurt and out for Saturday, marking them out once carries to every squad they belong to for that game.

The lineup builder gives you the quick available / out toggle you need while picking a squad. For the full picture -- the four statuses (Available, Out, Late, TBD), a Mark all available shortcut, and an availability snapshot across upcoming fixtures -- open the game-day event's Availability section. See Match-Day Availability.

The AI lineup proposer

On the Club plan, the Suggest lineup button hands the squad selection to the AI proposer.

• The proposer returns proposed units, bench, and unavailable, with per-slot reasoning that references each athlete's recent minutes, current availability, and your coaching intent.
• Nothing is applied automatically. The proposal opens on an Accept / Swap / Reject card so you review every pick first. Accept it to materialise the units into your draft, or reject it and carry on by hand.
• If you already have unsaved changes, the builder warns you that getting a suggestion replaces your current draft -- save first if you want to keep it.

You can also ask the AI assistant in chat:

"Pick my lineup for Saturday."

"Mia is injured -- find a replacement."

The assistant runs the same proposer and returns the suggestion on the same Accept / Swap / Reject card. The proposer is a Club feature -- a Pro coach who triggers it hits a paywall.

Saving a unit as a preset

Built a shape you'll reuse? From the More actions (⋯) menu, choose Save active unit as preset to store the current unit's layout as a reusable formation preset. It then shows up in the Formation picker -- in the lineup builder and in the activity canvas editor. See Formation Presets for more.

Recording minutes

Once the fixture has started, a Record minutes item appears in the More actions menu. Use it to capture how many minutes each athlete played.

Sport support

You can build lineups manually for every sport -- units, slots, bench, availability, and minutes all work regardless of the sport.

The AI proposer has first-class, sport-aware logic for:

• Soccer -- a single Starting XI plus a bench.
• Ice hockey and inline hockey -- multiple lines, defensive pairs, and goalies, with handedness balance.

For any other sport, the AI proposer returns a friendly "coming soon" message rather than inventing a lineup -- build those squads manually in the meantime.

Tier gates

• Building lineups requires the Pro plan. Free-tier coaches can't build lineups.
• The AI lineup proposer requires the Club plan. A Pro coach who triggers it hits a paywall.

See Match-Week Planning to plan training around the same fixtures, or Formation Presets for the tactical shapes that seed your units.