Soccer team generator by skill, with goalkeepers

Picking teams for 7, 8 and 11-a-side

The bigger the game, the harder it is to pick fair teams by eye. With 16 or 22 players, captains' picks drag on, and the result often has the right number of good players on each side and the wrong mix. One team gets the three fastest forwards, the other gets every defender, and the game turns into counterattacks in one direction. On a full field there's more space to exploit, so a team's shape matters as much as its talent.

The generator looks at both. Alongside the gap in overall strength, it compares the teams skill by skill, so a side of attackers against a side of defenders scores badly even when their averages match. What you see below is the team generator for every sport, opened on soccer and two teams; switch the sport or the number of teams whenever you like.

The soccer skills, and which to rate first

Each player can be rated on six outfield skills, plus goalkeeping for anyone who goes in goal:

With 20 players, seven skills each is a lot of tapping. Start with one Overall rating per player, then switch to By skill for the players who define a position: your out-and-out defenders and your quickest forwards. On a full-size field, Pace and Physical show more than in small-sided games, and Defending is what holds a team's shape. Those profiles are what let the generator spread attackers and defenders evenly.

When you're a keeper short, or have one too many

Under In goal, each player is Never, Sometimes, Mostly or Always. Mostly and Always mark the keepers for the game, and the generator spreads them across the teams. Bigger games bring three awkward cases:

• One keeper for two teams. Set them to Always. The other team rotates, and the generator usually gives it the stronger outfield to make up for it. Agree the rotation before kickoff: every ten minutes, or whoever concedes goes in.
• Three keepers for two teams. Set the two who will stay in goal to Mostly or Always and the third to Sometimes. The third then counts as an outfield player who can cover in goal.
• Three teams, two keepers. The keepers go to different teams, and the third team rotates. The generator weighs that in when it sets the outfields.

Goal Keeping only appears for a player once they go in goal. A keeper rated Overall then gets two sliders, one for their play on the field and one for Goal Keeping, so a great keeper who is an average field player counts as both. The goalkeeper guide goes deeper into rotation and goal share.

Large groups and tournament nights

There are 352,716 ways to split 22 players into two teams of eleven, and the generator checks every one, so the Balance Breakdown can say "Best possible" for your roster. Add a 23rd player and the count jumps past a million. From there the generator scores a large random sample, improves the best splits by swapping players, and says "Best found".

For a tournament night, set three or four teams: 24 players make four teams of six or three teams of eight. The score is the gap between the two most different teams, so every pairing in the round robin is at least that close, and the breakdown names the widest pair so you know which game to watch. The generator handles up to eight teams and 64 players.

An example: 16 players for 8-a-side

Sixteen sign up for Sunday's 8-a-side. Two of them play in goal: one always, one most weeks. You paste the list, set the keepers to Always and Mostly, and give the other fourteen an Overall from 4 to 9. Then you rate four players by skill: two forwards who are quick and never track back, and two center backs who rarely leave their half.

The keepers land on different teams. The skill-by-skill part of the score pushes the two forwards apart, and the two center backs too; if a pair still ends up together, move one and pin them where you want them. In the breakdown, the team with the stronger keeper often shows a slightly lower number on the field, because the generator trades a little outfield for the better goalkeeper on purpose. If the grade reads Good and you'd like a different look, press Auto Balance to see the next best split.

Tips for pickup soccer organizers

• Keep your captains. If your group likes having captains, pin one to each team and let the generator pick the rest around them.
• Positions come from skills. The generator has no positions. A player rated high on Defending and low on Shooting is a defender as far as the balance goes.
• Keep the list for next week. Copy my list turns the whole roster, ratings and keepers included, into text for your notes app.
• Smaller games. For a weekly five-a-side or an indoor court, the 5-a-side team picker and the futsal team generator use the same skills.

To see how the strength and style gaps are measured, read how the team balancer works.