All it takes is 5 steps in 5 minutes – and likely much less if your season roster is accurate and up to date.

Yup, that means in just 5 minutes you’ll have your players allocated to each period, along with their positions. Your line up will be in accordance with equal playing time rules…and, crucially, will take into account your player’s preferred positions and ranking, to create a balanced and competitive line-up, whilst operating within the rules of most recreational leagues. (Our legal team says we need to say “most” not “all” and asks that you check your league rules just to make sure).

First, choose a name of your game and enter the date. All line ups that you create are stored for future reference and can be accessed via the My Lineups page

First enter how many of your team are allowed on the field at any time. For older age teams, this would be 11, but in younger divisions it can be as few as 6.

Then enter your preferred formation i.e. how many of your defenders, mid-fielders and forwards you’d like on-field at any time. We always assume that, in addition to this formation, there will also be a goalie on the field (even if you are coaching a younger team where gloved goalies are not allowed, you’ll want someone in the role of “sweeper-keeper”). Want more guidance on formations? See FAQ 6. How to Choose a Formation, below.

Our algorithm allows you to choose any formation (i.e. any combination of defenders, midfielders and forwards) as long as the number of defenders plus midfielders plus forwards plus 1 goalie equals the number of your team that are allowed on the field at any time. If it doesn’t, you’ll be asked to amend your formation.

Although formations are required for each game, if your team is on the younger side, there’s a good chance that they’ll be running around in a bunch or picking daises regardless of where you tell them to play. Nevertheless, enter a formation and then at least you’ll have some guidance for those kids that are ready to play a more structured game.

By the way, we don’t specify left, right, or center for any positions, to provide coaches with flexibility.

We’ll show you a list of all your players for the season (we pull this from what you have saved in the season roster that you created on the Manage Players page). All your players are automatically selected for this game, so all you have to do is de-select anyone that is not available for this particular game, by un-checking the box next to their name.

Many coaches, players (and let’s face it parents) have strong views on whether they want a player to be goalie or not, so it saves everyone some headaches if you choose them in advance. You can choose to have the same player as goalie in each period, or a different goalie in each period and anything in-between. (Obviously you’ll need to ensure that you don’t infringe any equal playing rules that your league has by using one goalie in too many periods – we leave it up to you to ensure that).

Don’t see the goalie that you want for any period? Best to double check that they are in your season roster (as created on the Manage Players page) and were selected for today’s game in Step 3.

Don’t worry, these are the only positions that you need to choose players for – other than your goalies, our algorithm will determine how many periods each player should play and what position they are in for each period they are not on the bench.

When you created your season roster on the My Players page, you entered a first and second (and sometimes third) choice position for each player. In this step, you can review and edit those choices for this game (note that anything you choose here only affects this particular game and won’t affect the preferences you stored in the season roster).

In many cases you won’t want to make any changes here…but sometimes you might. For example, if all of your defenders are unavailable for this game, you may want to set the primary position of your next-best defenders as defender for just this game.

In this step, you’ll see the players that are available for this game listed in order of the player rank that you entered for them in the season roster on the Manage Players page. The player that is listed first will get the most playing time and the player listed last will get the least playing time.

If you’d like to change the order for this game, just drag and drop the players so that the player that you want to have the most playing time is at the top of the list and the player that you want to have the least playing time is at the bottom. (Note that anything you choose here only affects this particular game and won’t affect the preferences you stored in the season roster).

Why does this matter? As much as possible, our algorithm allocates equal amounts of playing time to each player. It does not allow any player to play more than one period more than another player (i.e. if the top ranked player plays 4 periods, every other player will play at least 3). The only exception to this is if you chose to name the same goalie in more than their fair share of periods.  However, you entering player rank helps our algorithm make much better recommendations as a) at the margin, it determines which players play more, b) it helps even out the teams as our algorithm doesn’t put all the top ranked players on the pitch at the same time, and c) when deciding which positions to allocate players to, it allows us to give more preference to the top-ranked players.

For each game you'll see three different views of the same lineup. Even though the lineup is the same in each, we provide different views so you can choose the one that is most intuitive and helpful for you in different situations.

For each period, a list of each player along with their position (goalie, defender, mid-fielder, forward or bench). These lists are sorted by formation i.e. goalie first, then defenders, then mid-fielders, then forwards.

A list of players showing what position they are playing for each period. By default this is sorted by shirt number, but you can sort it by any column by clicking on the sort in the respective column heading. E.g. to sort by position in period 1, just click on the arrows above “Period 1”

This is one of the handiest features of mylineupmaker, as during the game you can see which players are moving on and off the field, or moving between positions. It used to hurt my head trying to figure our who was going where but this makes it super simple so you can focus on the kids and the game, not lineup logistics. For periods 2, 3 and 4, this view shows which players are coming off the field, coming on to the field from the bench and/or changing position on the field. In each case the position that they are leaving/taking is shown, so that you have a quick and easy list of what is changing between each period.

Although our algorithm is pretty sophisticated and generally produces a solid line up based on the inputs you’ve provided, sometimes we might suggest something that’s not quite what you were looking for.Here are a few reasons that might be the case – and our suggestions for fixing it.

No problem. Just go to the Create Lineup page and re-run the algorithm. Note that if you enter the same inputs as you did the first time, you’ll most likely get the same results. So here are some tips on when and why you might want to change some of your inputs:

I want to change the goalies in one or more periods: No problem. Just go to Create Lineup and in step 4, choose the goalies that you would like for each period. 

I want some players on field more and some on field less: No problem. Just go to Create Lineup and in step 6 make sure that the players that you want to play the fewest number of periods have a lower player rank than the players that you want to be on field for the most time. 

One thing to bear in mind: other than in the case of named goalies, which are in your direct control of, our algo ensures roughly equal playing time for your team. As such, the player on the field the most will, at most, play only one more period than the player that is on the field the least. 

‍I want to change the positions that some people are in: The primary determinant of the positions that people play in are the preferred positions that you entered when creating your season roster (on the Manage Players page) and then potentially edited in step 5 of the Create Lineup page

In order to change things for just this game, just go to Create Lineup and in step 5, you can make edits to the preferred positions of any players that you choose. If instead you want to permanently change the preferred positions of any players, you can do so in the season roster My Players page before you re-run the algo. 

As a reminder of how the algorithm works, although there are other factors involved too, generally speaking we will try to have players be on the field in their preferred position. However, if other factors mean this is not possible, we will try to put them on the field in their second position. If that’s not possible we’ll use their third position. In the unlikely event there is no room for them in any of their 3 preferred positions, we will assign them to any available position on the field.

Obviously, there will be things that you know about your team that we will never know, and that we don’t have a good way of incorporating into our algorithm (e.g. if your top defender just had an argument with another defender on your team, so you don’t want them playing close to each other for this game). If the line-up is 90%+ of where you want it to be, and you prefer to make the final touches by yourself, instead of re-running the algo, just download our suggested lineup and update them manually. You can export toExcel for easy editing, to a PDF if you want to edit by hand, or just print out and handwrite your changes.

Sorry to hear that. Please don’t suffer in silence – let us know! If it’s something we can fix right now, we will. If not, we’ll put it on our list of enhancements for future releases of mylineupmaker.com by emailing support@mylineupmaker.com

Once you are happy with your lineup, you can export, print and save it, using the links at the <top right> of the Period View, Player View and Who’s Moving View
To print: just click the “print” link
To export: just click either the Excel or PDF links
To save in your mylineupmaker account: Any lineup that you have created will be saved in the My Lineups tab

Mylineupmaker allows you to choose any formation (i.e. any combination of defenders, midfielders and forwards) as long as the number of defenders plus midfielders plus forwards plus 1 goalie equals the number of your team that are allowed on the field at any time. If it doesn’t, you’ll be asked to amend your formation. 

What’s the best formation to use? Coaches and pundits have a lot of views on what the best formation is but the reality it depends on your team, your opposition and your preference - there’s no such thing as the “correct” formation. To give you some inspiration, we’ve listed some popular formations, below, with one of the most frequently used formations in bold at the top (if in doubt, use that one). But mylineupmaker allows you to use any of these…or one of your own.

In all the formations below the first number represents the number of defenders, the second the number of mid-fielders and the third the number of forwards. In addition, it’s assumed there is also a goalie. So, 4-3-3 indicates 1 goalie, 4 defenders, 3 mid-fielders and 3 forwards and 3-4-3 indicates 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 4 mid-fielders and 3 forwards.

4-3-3 (if in doubt, this is a sensible option to start with)
4-4-2
3-5-2
3-4-3

In all the formations below the first number represents the number of defenders, the second the number of mid-fielders and the third the number of forwards. In addition, it’s assumed there is also a goalie. So, 4-3-3 indicates 1 goalie, 4 defenders, 3 mid-fielders and 3 forwards and 3-4-3 indicates 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 4 mid-fielders and 3 forwards.

3-2-3 (if in doubt, this is a sensible option to start with)
2-3-3
3-1-4
3-3-2
2-4-2
4-3-1

In all the formations below the first number represents the number of defenders, the second the number of mid-fielders and the third the number of forwards. In addition, it’s assumed there is also a goalie. So, 4-3-3 indicates 1 goalie, 4 defenders, 3 mid-fielders and 3 forwards and 3-4-3 indicates 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 4 mid-fielders and 3 forwards.

3-2-2 (if in doubt, this is a sensible option to start with)
2-3-2
3-3-1
2-4-1

In all the formations below the first number represents the number of defenders, the second the number of mid-fielders and the third the number of forwards. In addition, it’s assumed there is also a goalie. So, 4-3-3 indicates 1 goalie, 4 defenders, 3 mid-fielders and 3 forwards and 3-4-3 indicates 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 4 mid-fielders and 3 forwards.

2-3-1 (if in doubt, this is a sensible option to start with)
2-1-3
3-1-2
3-2-1

In all the formations below the first number represents the number of defenders, the second the number of mid-fielders and the third the number of forwards. In addition, it’s assumed there is also a goalie. So, 4-3-3 indicates 1 goalie, 4 defenders, 3 mid-fielders and 3 forwards and 3-4-3 indicates 1 goalie, 3 defenders, 4 mid-fielders and 3 forwards.

2-2-1 (if in doubt, this is a sensible option to start with)
2-1-2
3-1-1
1-3-1

Sign in to your mylineupmaker.com account and click on the My Lineups tab on the navigation bar at the top of each page.
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At most recreational youth soccer games, coaches need to provide team lists to the referee that prove adherence to the league’s equal playing rules. Most often, this reporting is broken down into four periods. In addition, even if a game is only officially segmented into two periods, many coaches prefer to break it into quarters to allow player rotation and give players a short rest.
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Not right now. We know some coaches like to do more frequent changes, particularly in older divisions with longer games and sometimes larger rosters. We’re working on adding additional substitution periods – watch this space!  
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Most soccer teams have a gloved goalie(i.e. one that is allowed to pick up the ball in certain areas), but some younger leagues do not have the goalie as an allocated position. Regardless, our algorithm requires you to have a goalie in your formation (even if they are not allowed to pick up the ball) as coaches generally at least want a player in the role of “sweeper-keeper” (i.e. someone whose responsibility is to be the last defender, with primary responsibility for covering the goal).
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