Grassroots Football Blog

Running a grassroots junior football team is brilliant, but it can also be a lot to manage. Fixtures, results, availability, lineups, player minutes, training sessions, match reports, videos, stats and parent communication can quickly become a big admin job for any coach.

Pitch1 is a free-to-use grassroots football app, youth soccer team app and football team management app built to help junior football and youth soccer coaches keep everything in one place. You can use it simply to log fixtures and results, or go much deeper with player development tools, matchday tracking, training planning, video links, goal maps and stats.

Whether you call it junior football, youth football, youth soccer, grassroots soccer or club soccer, the challenges are very similar: keeping parents informed, organising players, planning fair minutes, tracking development and trying to make every game and training session useful for the players.

A junior football and youth soccer app that works on mobile and desktop

Pitch1 works through the app, on mobile web and on desktop. That means you can use your phone at the pitch, then sit down later on a laptop or computer to do the jobs that are easier on a bigger screen.

The guided tour starts with the basics: planning fixtures, entering results, recording scorers and assists, and building a proper history for your grassroots football, junior football or youth soccer team.

For coaches in North America, I have also put together a more detailed page here: App to manage a youth soccer team.

Tools to help you coach and improve your players

Pitch1 is not just about admin. A big part of the app is helping coaches understand their players, track development and make better decisions over time. For junior football, youth football and youth soccer, that can be really useful because player improvement matters just as much as the result.

At youth level, coaches are often trying to answer questions like: which position suits this player best, who is improving, who needs more minutes, who is creating chances, who is defending well, and how can we make training more useful? Pitch1 gives you the tools to start answering those questions with proper team records instead of guesswork.

• Lineup planning and minutes tracking to help give players fair minutes and track where they played.
• Player and team stats to understand performance across positions and matches.
• Goal maps, assist maps and heat maps to see where goals are created and scored.
• Training session planning using shared drills or your own custom drills.
• Video integration for YouTube, Veo, XBotGo, Insta360 and other recording setups.
• Animated tactics boards to explain shape, movement and training drills visually.

Make matchday easier for coaches and parents

On match day, Pitch1 helps you keep track of what is happening while the game is being played. The Matchday Live tools let you record goals, substitutions and notes in real time, while also helping you remember planned substitution times.

Those live updates can feed through to the player and parent side of the site, so relatives who cannot be at the game can still follow what is happening. That turns Pitch1 into more than just a coaching app — it becomes a matchday hub for the whole team.

Reduce admin with availability, coach permissions and gala tools

Grassroots football coaches spend a lot of time chasing information. Pitch1 helps with that too. Players and parents can use the availability checker to say whether they can attend games, training and galas, using a simple shared team login.

You can also add other coaches and set permissions, so you do not have to run everything alone. If your team plays galas or tournaments, the football gala tool helps you track matches, goals, minutes and team performance across a busy day.

A custom front end for players and parents

Pitch1 also gives your team its own player and parent area. That can include fixtures, results, player profiles, match reports, highlights, training videos and even free football mini-games with team leaderboards.

If you record matches, Pitch1 can connect reports and highlights to your video links. You can also build opponent team profiles, with notes, goal maps, assist maps and match history against each team.

Pitch1 tools for junior football and youth soccer teams

• Fixtures and results for junior football, youth football and youth soccer teams
• Scorers, assists and match events
• Player profiles, team stats and youth player development records
• Lineup planner and minutes tracker
• Matchday Live console and parent updates
• Availability checker for games, training, tournaments and galas
• Training session planner and drill library
• Goal maps, assist maps and heat maps
• Opponent team profiles
• Video integration for match highlights and coaching notes
• Animated tactics board and training drill creator
• Gala and tournament tools
• Free football mini-games for players
• Desktop, mobile and app access for coaches, parents and players

Sign up your junior football or youth soccer team

Pitch1 is free to use, so you can set up your junior football, youth football or youth soccer team and start managing fixtures, results, players and matchday tools without needing to commit to anything complicated.

Sign up your team here.

If you’re trying to decide which camera to buy for recording grass roots football, the shortlist is actually quite small. For most clubs and coaches, it comes down to three main routes: a dedicated AI football camera like Veo, a cheaper AI tracking setup like XbotGo, or a simpler DIY camera such as a GoPro or Insta360 on a tall tripod.

1) Veo – best overall for clubs

Veo is still the strongest all-round option if you want a camera built specifically for football. Its pricing page lists the Veo Cam 3 at $1,299 and the Veo Cam 3 5G at $1,599, with subscription plans layered on top for recording, storage and analysis. It is designed for full-pitch capture, AI follow-cam viewing and team analysis, so it makes the most sense for clubs filming regularly. You can view the full details on the Veo pricing page.

Pros: purpose-built for football, strong AI tracking, good for team analysis.
Cons: expensive, and significant ongoing subscription costs apply. Uploading to Youtube requires a higher tier subscription, so you're tied to their platform's own video software. 

2) XbotGo – best budget option

XbotGo is the most appealing lower-cost option. It uses your phone with an AI tracking mount, and XbotGo says the core features come with no monthly subscription, including tracking, live streaming and highlights. That makes it a much cheaper way to get automated football filming without committing to a full club-camera ecosystem. You can see the product on the XbotGo product page.

Pros: far cheaper than Veo, no subscription, good for parents and smaller clubs.
Cons: depends on your phone and setup. Weak tracking system often follows the player who runs most, not the ball... They're a pretty new start-up though and that's a software issue that I think they will probably improve significantly, in the near future. 

3) GoPro360, DJI Osmo 360 or Insta360 action camera – best DIY route

If you want the cheapest workable setup, a GoPro or Insta360 on a tall tripod can still do the job. This is the option I've gone with for my grass roots team, though it definitely has some cons... I've got an Insta 360 X5, on a 2.5m tripod. 

I went with this option for videoing my grass roots football team, because we couldn't justify Veo's subscription charges and because I didn't like XbotGo's tracking system. However, it does require a LOT of manual work. You need to set every keyframe manually, in terms of where the camera points throughout the match. That is very easy to do in the desktop suite (just right click the mouse), but a lot of people wouldn't think the effort is worth it. I chose the Insta 360 X5 over the other 360 action cams largely because it has the better desktop app. 

One other advantage over the XbotGo is that you can go full wide-angle, to view the whole pitch. Something that's very useful for checking your overall team's setup. This is also available in Veo. 

Pros: lower cost, no subscription, flexible for general filming. You've also basically just bought yourself an action camera. Very small and portable.
Cons: no proper football auto-tracking, so more manual work. Digital zoom can be weak for long distances (better for small football pitches).

Which one should you buy?

Buy Veo if you want the best dedicated football camera.
Buy XbotGo if you want the best value option.
Buy Insta360 X5 if you want the cheapest DIY setup.

Using recorded football games with Pitch1

One of the big advantages of filming your matches is that the footage does not have to sit in a folder and never get used. Within Pitch1, clubs can tie video back into their wider coaching plans by linking goals, match moments and training analysis in one place. That means recorded games can feed into session planning, player feedback and post-match review, rather than being treated as a separate tool.

Pitch1 also has a fun front end match commentary page for your players and parents to watch back the match. Check out an example of that here.

Summary

Ultimately, which is best depends on your budget and your time constraints. If you are flushed with cash, just go for a Veo but make sure you export your videos to youtube so you can keep them beyond any Veo subscription ending. 

If you are on a limited budget and have limited time, go for the XbotGo, but be prepared for it to look the opposite way and miss the occasional goal.

If you have a limited budget but a lot of free time, go for the Insta360. 

Hello all! Mike here. 

This is an intro post to explain what Pitch1.net is all about. Hopefully it will pique your interest! 

I'm a stats guy and always have been a stats guy. I've run online games (similar to Football Manager) and betting strategy websites (betmma.tips) as a career, so when I started coaching a junior football team a couple of years ago, naturally I started logging all the goals and statistics, out of interest. 

Over a couple of years, that developed into an excel spreadsheet of frankly mind-boggling complexity. 

When our team bought a camera to start recording games, I thought it was about time I created a tool to combine all the admin stuff I did for the team:

- A fun platform for the players and parents to playback all the goals and highlights.
- A powerful coaches panel with all the stats and analysis you could ever need.
- A lineup planner to give all the kids equal minutes.
- Coaching video analysis tools.
- Training session planners.... And much more!

As I've developed the site, I've really enjoyed the process and I've set the goal of effectively making professional football club level analysis tools in a free to use website / app. Basically #Opta analysis for #grassrootsfootball. There will be paid features going forward, but it will be a freemium model, so you'll never HAVE to pay to use the site. 

There will be an Android App and the site is already programmed to be mobile friendly... 

If you want to sign up and play around with the features, sign up on the admin panel!

Feel free to DM me for instructions on how anything works... Hopefully a lot of it will be self explanatory. 

I'll keep posting on here with new features I'm working on, so you can see the tools being developed. 

Until then, good luck in your games! See you on Pitch 1!

Mike