Squad rest and welfare threshold monitor
Problem
Minutes played and rest days are tracked in a tab of the same spreadsheet used for the depth chart, updated by whichever assistant coach remembers after full time. Before the next team sheet is written, someone scrolls back through the last few matchday squads to work out who played, who was rested and whether a player is due a break under the club's welfare policy. That check happens under time pressure, close to the submission deadline, and it is easy to miss that a young player has now started three matches running without the rest gap the policy requires. The gap is usually caught after the fact, by a parent, a medical note, or a governing body query, rather than before the team sheet goes in.
Product idea
A live board, one row per squad member, showing minutes played in the current rolling window, days since last involvement and a status of clear, approaching or breach against the club's configured rest and welfare thresholds. Thresholds are set once per age group or competition, not hard coded, because policies differ between an academy under fourteens side and a first team. As a matchday selection deadline approaches, the board pushes an alert to the named assistant coach and team operations manager for any player showing amber or red, so the check happens before the team sheet is written rather than after. It does not select the team, write the squad sheet or override a coach's decision. It only makes the current state visible and says so before it is missed.
Who it is for
Assistant coaches who log minutes after each match, team operations managers who own welfare compliance, and team administrators who need the status in view before a squad is named.
Possible first version
A web dashboard fed by a manual CSV upload of match minutes and dates per player, with configurable rest and load thresholds entered once per squad or age group. The board colour-codes each player and sends an email alert to a nominated person when a threshold is crossed ahead of a set matchday date. Out of scope for version one: automatic ingestion of match data from any athlete management system, integration with the squad sheet or travel roster, and any enforcement that blocks a selection. Data entry stays manual until the board proves useful enough to justify a feed.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 3-4 week first release
- Roles involved
- Assistant coach, Team operations manager, Team administrator
- Relevant to
- Professional club, Collegiate athletics, Academy & youth, Women's league
- Systems in play
- Squad and roster management tools, Spreadsheets and slide decks, Messaging groups
- Product framing
- Monitor
Questions we get asked
What do we need ready before this shows us anything useful?
Two things: minutes played and the date for every match a squad member has featured in, going back as far as the current rest window needs (a rolling four to six weeks covers most policies), and the specific rest and load thresholds your club or age group actually enforces, written down rather than held in a coach's head. If those thresholds have never been written down formally, that conversation is worth having before the board goes in, because the tool can only alert against a rule that has been agreed.
We already keep a spreadsheet tab for this. What does the board add?
The spreadsheet holds the same numbers; the problem is nobody looks at it until squad selection is already under way. The board turns that tab into something checked automatically against a deadline, and it pushes an alert to a named person rather than waiting to be opened. It can run alongside the existing spreadsheet for as long as you want it to, or the spreadsheet can retire once the manual upload becomes routine.
Our rest thresholds are judgement calls, not a fixed rule. Does this force a decision on the coach?
No. It flags a player as approaching or past a configured threshold; it does not stop that player being picked. The point is to put the information in front of the coach before the team sheet is written, not to replace their judgement. If a threshold turns out to be too rigid for how your staff actually make these calls, it is a setting to adjust, not a rule the tool enforces.
What happens if nobody logs minutes after a match?
The board shows the gap rather than hiding it. A player with no recorded match since a certain date is marked as stale, not silently assumed rested, so the person checking before selection can see the data is out of date and go find the answer another way. It depends entirely on someone keeping the upload current; skip that for a few weeks and the board becomes decoration rather than a safeguard.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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