Soccer Workflow Guide

Competition Feeds

Standings

Soccer standings for each competition include data such as total games, wins/losses/draws, goals scored/against, total points, and groups (where applicable).

Competition & Tournament Standings:

By using the schedule endpoint for Soccer Tournaments, clients will be able to see the games, and which group each game is being played.
The  Schedules & Game Day Info subfeed can be used to view upcoming games and group placements within tournaments.

Bracket Information:

Soccer competitions vary significantly in format, meaning no single bracket structure applies universally:

• FIFA Men's World Cup: Features a 48-team group stage followed by a pre-determined knockout bracket, with group winners and runners-up, along with the 8 best-ranked third-place teams advancing.
  • The knockout stage bracket is pre-determined, so matchups can be derived based on rankings.
• UEFA Champions League: Includes three qualifying rounds and a qualifying playoff, in which teams can enter at different rounds based on their nation's ranking and their own league position. There are two paths - Champions Path and League Path - during qualifying, where teams are kept apart.
  • 7 teams from qualifying will join 29 pre-determined teams in the 36-team League Stage.
  • The top 8 league finishers qualify for the Last 16 of the knockout phase.
  • Teams 9-24 in the league will compete in a mini-playoff; teams from 9-16th will be randomly drawn as seeds against the teams in 17-24th in a two-legged playoff to decide who joins teams 1-8 in the Round of 16.
• FA Cup (England): Features a straight knockout format where matchups are randomly drawn in each round. Premier League teams enter in the Third Round.

Due to this variability, SportsDataIO does not support standardized bracket generation for soccer competitions.

Teams, Players & Rosters

Soccer memberships are more complicated than traditional US sports' rosters, given players can belong simultaneously to club and national teams. Teams can also put players out on loans to other teams. If a player is on loan, his active membership will show the club he is on loan to. Once the loan ends and he is returned to his home club, his active membership will switch to his home club. Because of this, SportsDataIO tracks Players as team members and how often those memberships change due to loans. (see our soccer endpoint details for membership tracking).

• Player Profiles include data fields such as name, position, jersey, right/left footed, height/weight, birthdate, and nationality.
• Player Rosters: Memberships are used to assign players to teams, with players able to be a member to multiple teams (domestic club & international squad) and allows tracking of players on loan to other teams. Includes membership status (active/inactive) and start/end date of the membership.
• All Soccer PlayerID's start with 900.
• Team Profiles include data fields such as name, type (club/national), address, year founded, and team colors.
• Coaches are provided (first/last name).

Important Note on Jersey Numbers:

Due to players’ multiple team affiliations, jersey numbers displayed reflect the last team a player represented. For example, if Mohamed Salah last played for Egypt, his jersey number will reflect Egypt’s national team jersey. It will change back when he next plays for Liverpool.

World Cup Squads:

• FIFA sets roster deadlines, typically resulting in squad announcements on or near deadline day. Squads will be updated in the API as each respective country announces the squad list.
• Squads range from 23-26 players for the men's tournament and 23 players for the women's tournament.
• Late replacements (due to injury, illness, or personal reasons) are allowed until 24 hours before a team's first match. SportsDataIO updates squads as soon as possible after announcements are made.

A full list of available data fields can be found here:

• PlayerBasic
• TeamBasic
• Team

Venues & Officials

Soccer venues are maintained globally across all leagues and competitions in a single feed, recognizing venues frequently host matches across multiple competitions:

Venues

• Soccer Venues DO NOT need to be called by CompetitionID. All soccer competitions leverage the same Venues and VenueID.
• If a team is playing in an NFL arena, the StadiumID for Soccer will be different than NFL StadiumID. Examples include AT&T Stadium and Gillette Stadium.

Officials

Soccer referees are delivered through our various Box Score endpoints.

Event Feeds

Schedules & Gameday Info

Soccer schedules are maintained and updated promptly each year upon release by leagues, FIFA, or relevant governing bodies. Since there are a large number of teams and tournaments being tracked by SportsDataIO, schedule release timelines vary by competition.

Each game record includes:

• Home and away team
• Date & time (UTC Time Zone)
• Game Status (Scheduled, InProgress, Final, Suspended, Delayed, Postponed, Canceled)
• Venue
• Attendance (post-match)

Tournament-Specific Game Creation:

• For competitions with group stages followed by knockout rounds (e.g., World Cup, European Championship), knockout round GameIDs are created only after preceding rounds conclude.
• For straight knockout competitions (e.g., FA Cup), subsequent rounds’ GameIDs are also created only after current rounds finish.

For more information please see our Soccer Guide

Scores & Game State

Scores and Game State are updated live during all games, along with the final score being provided after the game is completed and verified.

• Score includes the score for each half plus the final score for both teams.
• Game State includes things like score current half, clock display, extra time, and if the game is entering a shootout.
• See our Soccer League Coverage Guide for instructions on calling data for each individual league and tournament.

Final Only (No Game State)

• Final score results are delivered after the event is final and are delivered in half, extra time, penalties, and total score values. Final scores are available about 5-10 minutes after each game concludes.
• A full list of available score details can be found here:
• See our Soccer Guide for more regarding special league and tournament details.

Live & Final (With Game State)

• Live Game coverage is delivered when an event "Status" field switches from "Scheduled" to "InProgress"
• Game State data is updated alongside all other live in-game data, with a delay approximately 30-60s behind TV broadcast.
• Live scores are delivered in half, extra time, penalties, and total score values.
• Final Scores are available at the conclusion of each event.
• A full list of available game state details can be found here:
  • Score
  • ScoreBasic
• See our Soccer Guide for more regarding special league and tournament details

Team & Player Stats

Team and Player Stats are managed on a game by game basis as well as season long totals. Stats are updated in season for every game, along with detailed Box Score level information for each particular game.

• See our TeamGame and TeamSeason Data Dictionary tables for a full list of available Team Stats.
• See our PlayerGame and PlayerSeason Data Dictionary tables for a full list of available Player Stats.
• Our Soccer League Coverage Guide has instructions on calling specific data for each individual league and tournament.

Final Only

• Soccer team and player stats are delivered after the event is final - typically 5-10 minutes after each game concludes.
• Each game's final player stats are added to a player's and team's Season Stats once the game's final player stats are verified by our team (approximately 1 hour after each game is completed).
• A full list of available stats can be found here:
  • PlayerGame
  • TeamGame
  • PlayerSeason
  • TeamSeason

Live & Final

• Soccer team and player Game Stats delivered as "Live" are based on live updates throughout the game, typically 15-20 seconds behind the TV broadcast.
• Each game's final player stats are added to a player's and team's Season Stats once the game's final player stats are verified by our team (approximately 1 hour after each game is completed).
• A full list of available stats can be found here:
  • PlayerGame
  • TeamGame
  • PlayerSeason
• For the FA Cup, there are no match and players stats until the Fourth Round. All teams who make it to the Fourth Round will have these stats, regardless of their league status or lack thereof.

Player Feeds

Lineups & Injuries

Lineups

• Projected and confirmed lineups tracked daily throughout regular seasons and applicable tournaments.

• Pre-match lineups include formations (e.g., 4-4-2), pitch positions, injury status, body parts affected, and injury start dates.
• Confirmed lineups available 10 minutes to 1 hour before kickoff via the Box Score endpoint.

Injuries

The following leagues and competitions have injury data (Country/Confederation - League or Competition - CompetitionID):

• Australia - 19 - A-League
• CAF (Africa) - 11 - Africa Cup of Nations
• England - 1 - Premier League
• FIFA (World) - 21 - World Cup
• FIFA (World) - TBA - Women's World Cup
• France - 13 - Ligue 1
• Germany - 2 - Bundesliga
• Italy - 6 - Serie A
• Netherlands - 7 - Eredivisie
• Spain - 4 - Primera División (La Liga)
• UEFA (Europe) - 3 - Champions League
• UEFA (Europe) - 16 - European Championship

  Our Soccer Guide has instructions on calling data for each individual league and tournament.   

Betting Feeds

SportsDataIO covers many soccer leagues and we have two different types of coverages for soccer odds. The first one is our Pre-Game Lines and In-Play Lines odds, consisting of over/under, spread, and moneyline (with Asian Handicap for soccer.)

Our advanced odds include odds consisting of team, game, and player props in addition to over/under, spread, and money line odds. Below you can find which leagues we have odds for.

Game Lines

Game lines (spread, moneyline, totals) available as both pre-match and in-play, including timestamps for opening price, all line movement changes, and closing price, with optional resulting available as an add-on.

• Odds are made available when sportsbooks publish opening lines, lead time varies by competition and tournament.
• Includes full-game odds markets plus partial game lines such as halves.
• See our Soccer Guide to understand which leagues have Game Lines available.

Pre-Game Lines

• Soccer Pre Match Odds are generally made available for the following week of matches, even if the team has an interim game in a different competition.
  • Example: if Arsenal have a Premier League game on Saturday against Liverpool, then a Champions League game on Wednesday against Barcelona, then a Premier League game the next Sunday against Everton, the Everton odds will be published the day of, or the day after, the Liverpool game.
• This is applicable for basic match odds; other markets may be published in the lead-up to the game.
• Note that in all cases, the availability of markets for any given game within a competition are subject to the bookmakers' decision to offer them pre-game, in-play, both, or neither.
• See our Soccer Guide for available betting markets by league and tournament.

Pre-Game Lines Plus

• Includes full-game odds markets plus partial game lines such as halves.
• Includes all line movement for pre-game odds markets.
  • Resulting: See our Betting Guide for available markets with resulting and how it works.
  • Line Movement: The Betting Guide also explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

In-Play Lines

In-play betting markets, including spread, money line, and totals are available immediately following the start of each game as the sportsbooks make them available.

• Does not include resulting of game line markets.

• See our Soccer Coverage Guide for leagues with In Play lines available.

In-Play Lines Plus

• In-play betting markets, including spread, moneyline, and totals are available immediately following the start of each game as the sportsbooks make them available.
• Includes all line movement for in-play betting markets.

• In-play game odds results are available 5-10 minutes following the conclusion of each game once all stats are verified.
  • Resulting: See our Betting Guide for available markets with resulting and how it works.
  • Line Movement: The Betting Guide also explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

Props

Advanced odds (Props) are available in Soccer from one sportsbook - DraftKings

Includes Player, Game, and Team Props available as both pre-match including timestamps for opening price, all line movement changes, and closing price.

• Odds are made available when sportsbooks publish opening lines, lead time varies by competition and tournament.
• See our Soccer Guide for available sportsbooks and betting market by league.

Props Plus

• Line movement is available for Soccer Prop markets.
• Does not include resulting of prop markets.
  • Line Movement: The Betting Guide explains how to access the Betting Market endpoints to view an individual market's movement.

Fantasy Feeds

Projections

Legacy Projections

• Soccer projections are provided through SportsDataIO's proprietary in-house machine learning models generate fantasy projections for all players across select leagues, and our Fantasy Scoring Engine calculates live and final fantasy points for many different scoring systems. They are available around 14 days before the game begins. 
• Soccer projections will continue to get updated leading up to the start of the game. See out Soccer Guide for available Projections and Points coverage
• It is important to know the Soccer specific points and scoring system is different across fantasy and DFS operators. To learn more, see our Fantasy Points Calculations.

Salaries, Stats & Points

In-season DFS Fantasy Projections are typically available up to 5 days in advance and then updated leading up to the start of the game as new information becomes available (injuries, transactions, confirmed lineups, etc). Fantasy Projections for games on future dates are updated a few times throughout the day. Fantasy Projections for games on the current day are initially released by 9am ET and then updated every 10 minutes.

• DFS Salaries & Slates provides all contest information from the major operators: DraftKings and FanDuel allowing DFS optimizers and other fantasy tools to automate managing DFS contests.

Salaries & Slates

Contest Slates includes the contest slate published by the operator, which Game ID(s) are available for this contest slate and the Player ID(s) that are eligible to participate. Includes additional information such as number of roster slots, salary cap (if applicable), number of games included, if it's multi-day or not, etc.

• Soccer salaries and slates are available for FanDuel and DraftKings.
• As this is an aggregated product,DFS Salaries & Slates become available once we receive them from the various DFS operators. Typically operators publish slates and salaries as early as 24 hours before the contest starts, but may be published closer to the start of a contest.
• New slates should become available in the feed within 30 minutes of an operator publishing them.

Points & Stats

Fantasy Points are updated live once games start and delivered as final once games are complete. Fantasy points are calculated according to several scoring systems including DraftKings, FanDuel, and SportsDataIO's proprietary scoring system.

• Fantasy points are calculated according to several scoring systems including DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo, and SportsDataIO's proprietary scoring system.
• It is important to know that the soccer-specific points and scoring system is different across fantasy and DFS operators
• FantasyPointsDraftKings, FantasyPointsFanDuel, and FantasyPointsYahoo fields are all calculated using their classic slate scoring systems.
• Learn more in our Fantasy Points Calculations guide.

News & Images

SportsDataIO provides bespoke news feeds and a variety of levels of news coverage to fit your specific needs:

• Editorial Wire Service: This includes more than 30,000 long-form content pieces in total across all leagues (previews, recaps, breaking news) with an associated image attached to each article. Please contact us to learn more about how we can connect you with newswire articles.
• Custom News: For bespoke articles created to fit your project, please contact us.
• AI-generated news: For procedurally-generated news based on data inputs, please contact us.

Previews, Recaps & Breaking News

• Previews, Recaps, and Breaking News are available for all sports all year round
• Your SportsDataIO Client Manager can facilitate an introduction with appropriate news partners
• These feeds are accessed directly through partner sites and not SportsDataIO endpoints.