Simple Subs

The field

Tracks everyone's play time so you can keep it fair

It can be chaotic during a match! You have to track everyone's play time while you also watch the match, talk to players on the bench, and plan out upcoming subs.

Simple Subs shows your team in its formation, with each player's time on the field right under their name. Players on the bench show how long they've been off. So when you're thinking about a change, one look tells you who's due. And there are multiple guardrails (optional) to help you ensure play time is distributed equitably.

Substitutions you've planned show up as yellow arrows, and a red OFF marks who's coming off. Rework your plans as much as you like, until you're ready to call the subs.

A close-up of the field: each player's badge with their name, number and the minutes they have been on, a red OFF pill beside three of them, and yellow arrows running up from the bench.

Call the subs

Plan your subs, then read them out

Subs at youth games can be confusing. You call out a few names, somebody doesn't hear, and a player runs on without knowing where to go.

With Simple Subs, you plan the changes while play goes on: drag a player from the bench onto the player they're replacing, or move players around on-field. Simple or complex, no matter how complicated the moves, it's easy to plan out and easy to execute. At the next stoppage, tap Call Subs and you get a plain list of who's coming off, who's going on, and what position each one is playing. Read it out and everyone knows where to go. (If you've ever ended up with two right backs and no strikers, you need this app!)

Then tap Make Subs. They all go in together, everyone knows where to go, and everyone's clock keeps up.

The Call the Subs panel: a COMING OFF list of three players with their positions, and a GOING ON list reading Delia to left WM taking off Wren.

Tactical planner

Don't tell the players the strategy, SHOW them

Try explaining a corner kick to a group of nine-year-olds by pointing at an empty field. You wave your arms, you say "no, the other post," and you can see it isn't landing. Showing is always more effective than lots of words of explanation.

A magnet board helps, but it's one more thing to carry to the field, and the magnets don't have your players' names on them. The tactical planner is that board, on the phone or iPad you already have out. Tap Copy From Active Match and your team appears on it, names and all, in the positions they're playing right now. Draw some lines to explain the strategy, and your bench players understand exactly what to do when they get out on the field.

You can also use the tactical planner to build practice plans and explain drills to your players. It's got a ton of features to help you communicate strategy and tactics to players and coaches.

The tactical planner: a named blue team on a green field, three opponent faces in the penalty area, a ball, two curved yellow arrows showing runs, a dashed blue line for a pass, and two numbered markers.

At full time

Simple Subs keeps track of the paperwork for you

If your league wants a substitution form after every game, you know how it goes: you're trying to keep up with it all match long, and getting distracted from the action. Subs get missed, the form gets missed - it's a mess. Or you're trying to fill it out from memory. Aren't you glad Simple Subs is keeping track of everything? Rather than asking you to multitask or have a photographic memory, Simple Subs tracks the details and provides standard reports on demand at the end of the match.

When the final whistle blows you already have a play-time report, a minute-by-minute events report, your league's free substitution form and, for games played in quarters, the standard game lineup card. Refs can take screenshots, or you can share any reports as a PDF. (AirDrop, email - whatever you want.) The forms were built to match the official ones, so whoever gets them knows exactly what they're looking at.

Every match is saved with its reports, so you can open them again later to look something up or send them to someone.

The End Of Match Reports screen: a box score of goal scorers and cards, then buttons for Match Time Report, Match Events Report, Free Substitution Report and Game Lineup Card.

iPhone and iPad

Use your iPad or your iPhone

The iPad gives you the biggest view, and the app was designed with it in mind. But some weeks the tablet stays home, and your phone is always with you. Even a full 11v11 team with fifteen subs fits on an iPhone, everything is where it is on the iPad, and you can run it with one hand.

There's no account to create, nothing to sign in to, and it doesn't need a signal, which is lucky, because most fields barely have one.

The same match screen on an iPhone, in portrait, with the field, the planned substitution arrows and the bench all visible at once.

And the rest of it

All the other things that come up on game day

Quarters, not minutes

For the younger divisions where the rule is "everybody gets two quarters", the pill counts quarters and changes land on the break.

Hydration breaks

Stop the clock or keep it running. Every play-time pill, bench timer and report freezes together, so nobody is credited with a water break.

Your own countdown timers

Five minutes until the keeper rotates. It flashes, rings and buzzes when it gets there.

Goals, with who scored them

Tap a goal to credit it, or correct it three quarters later. Scorers wear a ball beside their name.

Cards and playing short

Yellows, reds, second yellows, and a marker holding the empty spot so the app knows you're down to ten.

Formations you can draw

Drag positions where you want them, and change formation mid-match, and everyone keeps the minutes they've played.

Share by QR code

Move a roster, a formation or a tactical board to another device screen to screen. No cloud, no account, nothing uploaded.

Nothing gets lost

A match in progress is saved continuously and comes back exactly as it was, even if the phone restarts in the middle of it.

Fix anything

The score, the clock, who scored, who turned up, who's playing where. Games are messy and the app expects it.