Match Simulator
Match Simulator Available on Google Play
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About me

Hi! I'm Joshua, the creator of Match Simulator.

What started as a hobby project in March 2019 has grown into something much bigger, with over 100 million matches simulated to date. This is now the third version of the website, and it’s an ongoing project that we continue to improve.

We’re always grateful for the contributions and ideas from the community. Thank you for your involvement and support, we're looking forward to your comments and ideas!

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3,755 comments

Version 3.3.0 is out now, containing a substitution rework allowing for 5 substitutions in 3 instances. Matches will use the new substitution rules by default, except for older cups and tactics; you will have to change the cup or tactics settings to upgrade to 5 subs and a larger bench size.

I have a few propositions to be added. Can you consider these.

  1. Players’ match ratings
  2. Possibility of injuries (would make simulations more realistic)
  3. View of the players’ fitness in the simulation (and also stamina ratings for players)
  4. Possibility to make substations yourself

I appreciate your work and that you have made this nice website. 

On idea 4: i think subs should be made after a player is injured and isn't able to continue, tired, performed poorly or tactical ones, also time-wasting ones. Injuries are already planned.

And subs after a player is booked are also common.

Yes when reworking substitutions I will take those things into account

Also, im against manual subs because of the hypothetical scenario where an user would make all substitutions in completely arbitrary minutes, and making manual substitutions would have to be in-game, but i will still Dislike that idea because in-game injury time would have to be affected in some cases because the formula will be different in the future.

I wrote that idea because teams in the simulation makes usually so random subs example attacker is swithed to defender or something else.

Attacker to defender happens when a team is winning by a narrow margin and wants to hold their lead. The opposite happens when it's losing by a narrow margin, though for that to happen both teams must have not used all the sub windows. Also happens after a red in real life, even a late booking by an attacker 

It’s not quite like that because also when match is a draw teams make random subs.

And sometimes if team is losing they sub attacker off and defender comes in place of attacker. And also in the opposite way when team is winning they sub defender off and attacker comes in.

This is true indeed, but it's a bit randomized. So when a team is behind they are more likely to replace a defender by an attacker and vice versa if they are ahead. When it's a draw it is most likely to substitute equaly, but there is chance that a midfielder comes on for an attacker etc.

I meant that injury time would be lower with less subs and that manual subs  would make it possible for subs to happen between the 1th to 6th minutes

Or does the in-game formation change when that like sub happens. Because otherwise that kind of random subs doesn’t make sense.

You'd have to imagine that, yes. For ths standard engine it doesn't really matter, but it does for the beta engine. I am aware of the problem and will try to solve it in a rework of the match engine

  1. Player ratings are high on the planned list
  2. Injuries even higher ;)
  3. Also planned
  4. Also planned

Thanks for the kind words :)

Out of curiousity and if you can tell, what's highest on the list?

To be honest, I only have a timeline up until about February. 

The next updates will include more events, match of the day (i.e. real-life matches being featured on homepage and maybe other parts of the website).

Then there will be changes in the cup creation. Where you would now use cup presets, all available leagues will be getting official presets that you can use to quickly create leagues. Same for cups such as FA Cup, Champions League etc.

After that, there will be a complete redesign of the website, which is scheduled to release between Christmas and the end of January.

From then, I will focus again on the match engine and stuff like player ratings, stamina, substitutions, etc. will be tackled. 

R.I.P. Diogo Jota🇵🇹 (1996 - 2025). You will always be remembered ❤️!

There it is, the 2024/25 season is now LIVE! Enjoy :)

Thank you, but what about events? Other than the Champions league, the leagues aren't updated either

Coming soon!

Will the champions league format be avalible when creating a cup?

İ hope

Dear moderators, is it possible to make it so that teams from Mods can be seen in the Teams section?

Hi all, it's been a while since I have last worked on the website and been active. This has to do with me currently moving to a new house - a process that has taken (and will still take) quite some time. 

I know that you are all eagerly waiting for the 2024/25 season update, this update can only come once the new data is available. Usually, the update is at the end of September or at the beginning of October. I will do my best to make it happen around that time this year as well, so keep an eye out :)

Another frequently requested addition is the new Champions League format. When we opened the BETA in April, I had hoped it would only take about two months to make that the definite release. After that, I would be able to add new features and formats et cetera. So that was all planned for around June/July. But I simply did not have enough time to finish up. So that's the situation now, we have a BETA that is around 70% finished.

The reason that it is difficult to add the new Champions League format now, is that I would have to add it twice basically; once in this main website, and once in the BETA. Of course, all the core functionality could remain the same (even though there would still be a few differences in the BETA), but the look and feel would have to be designed differently. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. An option is to only add the new format for the BETA, another option is to just refocus on finishing the BETA as soon as possible and add it after it's done - but there's no saying how long this would still take... 

I want to keep you all in the loop as I understand it can get frustrating not hearing any updates so I hope this answers some questions. 

In the meanwhile, I will do my best to use every single spare minute to work on the website and hopefully work towards a release of the BETA.

Thanks for understanding! 

Best, Joshua

Thank you for the works

Hello Joshua,

 

Thank you very much for presenting us with this beautiful project. It’s really great to be able to compare clubs from all around the world that would never play against each other and create our own fantasy leagues. We are eagerly looking forward to your new update for the 24-25 season and the new UEFA tournament format.

 

Best regards.

 

 

R.i.p Diogo Jota 🕊️

The new Champions League format is live now!

 

Update: Europa League has been added as well

when you can do Eurpoa League and Conference League

Both been added

oh wow, thats so cool

Reminder: 2024/25 season in MS will come as soon as FC25 releases (September 27th, could be later). Avoid flooding the same question in the comments. Remember to use a mod while waiting. 

Good to hear :) can we also expect the champions league cup format around that time as well?

No idea. Joshua has been busy lately I think, so hopefully he'll add it soon. But we cannot be sure.

Hi! First of all, I just want to say the app is amazing and has great potential. But if you add the following features, it could become much more popular, realistic, and enjoyable for many users:

1. Add a realistic Manager Career Mode:

Include full control over training, tactics, match planning, transfers, loans, and squad management.

Allow users to manage both a club and a national team at the same time.

Add club tournaments in Manager Mode like:

FIFA Club World Cup (with a 32-team format, host country, and stadiums).

Intercontinental Cup for continental champions.

European Super Cup and many more club tournaments.

For national teams, include:

FIFA World Cup every 4 years, with host country and real stadiums.

EURO, Copa America, AFCON, CONCACAF.

World Cup qualifiers for each continent.

2. Add more advanced and realistic tactical systems:

Let users choose specific tactics for attacking, defending, passing style, pressing, and playing philosophy.

Add realistic player roles during matches (e.g. deep-lying playmaker, inverted winger, box-to-box midfielder).

3. Improve match simulation realism:

Make wins, draws, and losses depend on more realistic factors like:

Team strength and tactics

Stadium (home/away)

Weather conditions

Crowd support

Player morale

If you add these features, the app will easily become one of the best and most realistic football management simulations out there. It has huge potential! Thank you! 🙏⚽

Thanks, I answered your email

R.I.P Diogo Jota. Such a sad loss YNWA

i think a good addition would be a 6th substitution for extra time, would help for injuries that put a team down to ten

I see many people are liking this haha, I chose to leave it out to not overcomplicate it but this will be added someday

Hi. I had an idea. I wanted to have seasons in the cups. For example, it would be possible to create a Cup and after its completion start the next season, with relegations and promotions

That is planned, but might become a premium feature.

Why would it be a premium feature, wouldn't you make more ad revenue from the same cup?

Because I want to give premium users a bit more features than just simulate matchday

My suggestion for that is give Premium users a way to autmoatically simulate lower divisons, free users will have to simulate every match of every division

adding option "add next" into make a player screen would make easier to bulk add players. it'll copy nation, club and maybe position of previous player

Good suggestion, noted.

Please add player performance ratings during and after matches!

I've always wanted to see how a player performs during the game without them scoring a goal or assisting, etc.

Sofascore and OneFootball have ratings for the players and it would be nice if you added it somehow.

That´s why Union Berlin is yellow and red. LOL https://matchsimulator.com/match/ed6e4f8940a946ca/bayer-04-leverkusen-vs-1-fc-union-berlin

Version 3.1.0 is live now and it includes the custom EURO and WC 2026 format! When making a new cup, simply check the 'Best 3rd placed teams progress' checkbox. You will be able to make a group + knockout with any amount of participants (between 2 and 64) and it will automatically calculate how the team progression will work and whether a qualifier is needed.

To start, you can for example make a cup with 24 (EUROs) or 48 (WC 2026) participants and see how it unfolds, enjoy!

Yessir 🔥

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Anyone here alive? It's back!

Hello I have an idea to make it more refined. Would it be possible to simulate a whole matchday, or even a whole season with a button. It was fun to start, but later on, I could not be asked to simulate hundreds of games to see who will win the league.

It has been asked quitely alot, that idea is known for a while, just wait. 

i agree but you have to wait. i think this should be in faq

Great Idea, It's a pain deciding who won the league with a 32 Team Round Robin indeed

https://matchsimulator.com/match/adc35c321c951ba1/6-a-vs-liverpool   Jota with the winner

https://matchsimulator.com/cup/1550540/club-world-cup?uid=684fe04841959
Why did Boca Juniors advance from group C and not Auckland City, which took 2nd place in that group?

It's a rare occassion where both teams are completely equal, and apparently the sorting differs in the scheduling of the next round from what you're seeing. Im aware of the bug, but yeah they both deserved it equally as much to progress

No idea, let's all laugh @ Chelsea who got grouped though🤣

Idea: Graph on the team page that shows their league position over time

Planned!

So I've been busy the last days, a lot of new updates! Check the changelog to see what changed, it includes some highly requested features like the penalty shootout visual, community leaderboard, injuries, and fixes for the tactics.

Thanks for your amazing work!

Can you add an option or button in a game where, if the game is finished there is a button that will lead us to the next page of the match. so we can quickly go to the next match

I've always wanted that feature!

Maybe, but it comes down to the same thing as a full matchday sim (see FAQ): it would reduce pageviews that are required to sustain the website.

I see, I thought it would not really be as bad as simulating matchday but it still does reduce pageviews.

But instead can you add a Hybrid Friendlies system? Which mean a Club could Compete with a Nation?

Maybe, but the full underlying structure does not support that so it would be a really intense change. And: what should happen when a player plays for both club and nation? 

Ahh yeahh, I see. But is it possible if we can make a custom tournament where there can be relegation so it's just like Premiere League, EFL, ETC.

And also like in the League there also an option where if the top 5 teams in the league can go to like another cup for example in Premiere league top 5 teams can go to the Champions League. It would be a really good Idea

Can you add offsides? For example, a goal is scored, but there is a VAR check and it can be cancelled or counted. And in general, it's a good idea about VAR reviews. You can make them look at the red card foul or smth else

VAR is planned.

Cool

I think other people noticed it but there's too many injuries happening in game. The addition of injuries is great and makes the game more realistic but there's like one injury per game and even the goalkeepers get injured wich is something very unlikely. So i would just reduce the probability of injuries and even more for the keepers. Another addition I thought of about injuries are the training ones because player injure themselfs even in training so i would add a low probability of training injuries that probably will increase them but it's even more realistic.

From my own experience, the number of injuries seems quite realistic but the number of injuries that happens in a match is sometimes unrealistic but actually it balances with the number of injuries that occurs in training that is not featured (yet?) on ms.

the injuries are random

Yeah! They happen way too often.

The injury chance has been toned down.

The injury update is really great, it adds a whole new level and I'm really excited to see how it affects the games. however in the games that i've simmed so far i notice that there's a lot of injuries earlier in the game, which isn't really accurate. i might be just seeing something unlucky, but I think it would be more accurate if there were more injuries later instead of earlier

Agreed and something I plan on improving. Same as reducing the chance of an injury for a GK

Ok thanks

This has been fixed now.

I believe we would really like Joshua to add injuries to match simulator.  

Slovan Bratislava and FK Crvena Zvezda have been added to the database and are now available to use in your matches and cups.

Big thanks to Larsson for creating the players :)

Greatest comeback ever? 

Who's had a better comeback in match simulator?

https://matchsimulator.com/match/c2735ec2ffd832f0/lazio-vs-napoli

Your comeback is really good but look at this one (well it's true that it's in two games...), Italy won 4-0 in the first leg and Portugal was deprived of Bernardo Siva who was suspended...

https://matchsimulator.com/match/4a3f802d7d8bd8da/portugal-vs-italy

How tf Italy won if Portugal was able to beat them 6-0

I dont now, the hazard of football

Important note: 

Many of you are wondering if it's possible to simulate faster (such as once per league or once per matchday). It will come probably on a premium feature, not yet confirmed when exactly. If possible, avoid asking the same question we have answered before. Thank you for your attention!

I have to admit I've transferred dioga Jota to an unknown team now as it's too painful to see him score etc.  still very sad over the news 

Can you make it so that we can choose the penalty taker, free kick taker, corner kick taker and also choose the captain? 

Planned!

Hi! While I was making a fantasy league, I realised I couldn´t create players, because there was an error... Could you fix it, please?

I was also liking a comment and this weird warning showed up:

But, when I refresh the site, the like appears...

This is what happens when I create a player ("diz", in portuguese, is "says"):

Should be fixed now, thanks for telling me!

No problem. It´s fixed. Thank you for fixing it!

It'd be great to see more easily when a team get a red card, like a red square next to the name of the team like in TV

Good idea, will add it to my list

Suggestions for community tab:

Vote for new features

Vote on craziest result

IRL football chat

Daily record leaderboard

Social media contest (ex: matchsim video with the most views gets a month of premium)

Not bad! Most of these are planned indeed as community features, I like the suggestion of social media contest!

New update for MatchSim: Injuried added

Version 3.3.0 is out now, containing a substitution rework allowing for 5 substitutions in 3 instances. Matches will use the new substitution rules by default, except for older cups and tactics; you will have to change the cup or tactics settings to upgrade to 5 subs and a larger bench size.

Can you potentially add an option to select no subs in the future? Would be kinda cool to see that for experiments imo

only a few minutes until this gets discontinued. im happy that its improving and im excited for the beta. this site deserves way more recognition, its so fun. i hope that in the beta version there will be a winter update bcs now manchester city is still stronger than everyone which is just unrealistic. barca is maybe like 5th best team there when theyre walking through everyone this season. ive been here since 2021 and its fun to this day to hop on here sometimes and do some tournaments. it actually used to have real logos but yeah yall probably threaten with a lawsuit or sum. keep it up.

Yeah they should make their own ratings. If you have time on your hands you can edit them yourself though

Can you make it so that we can choose which teams start in the earlier round when there are not enough teams to all start at the same time, because it is so annoying wanting one team to start in the later round and them always starting in the earlier round

Yes, planned

when will this be done

https://beta.matchsimulator.com/match/5cfa89bccc5c1d73/viktoria-plze-vs-real-sociedad

all own goals lol

Does this remind anyone of Leverkusen this season? 

https://matchsimulator.com/match/b00a605dfd7c5e96/aston-villa-vs-bayer-04-leverkusen

EURO 2024 is now available as an event: https://matchsimulator.com/event/9/uefa-euro-2024

Let's get the hype for this tournament started :)

FINALLY
The record has been broken: 126.8K matches simulated in 24 hours!

Happy New Year everyone! Here's to another year of Match Simulator, looking forward to seeing what heights we can reach :)

We have some big stuff planned for this year, including a redesign coming soon... Thank you all for being a part of the community and coming with suggestions and ideas, really happy with how invested you all are!

happy new year for you too!my birthday's tomorrow!with exams sadly.....

Happy birthday! Hope your exams went well :)

thank you very much!!

 

What you get on your exams, send pic for proof plz.

I'd just like to appreciate Larsson and Joshua for this 2023-24 version as it's very enjoyable with all the mods by Larsson and Joshua has done a good job with the new commentary system as it's more interesting to watch then earlier.

I have long wanted to incorporate real-life football more into this website, and with this new version I found a way to do so. In the events, you will now find current leagues and competitions, along with up-to-date standings, fixtures, and similar to the World Cup page, you can easily start the cup from this page. 

In the future, more leagues and cups will be added such as Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, etc. 

And there's a lot more to come with regards to integration of real-life football, so keep an eye out!

Look forward to your reactions and as always, let me know if you encounter any problems.

Quick links:

https://matchsimulator.com/event/4/eredivisie

https://matchsimulator.com/event/3/premier-league

https://matchsimulator.com/event/2/uefa-champions-league (also added FK Crvena Zvezda to the base game, based on Larsson's mod)

 

Update: just included that the schedule of events that are a league (Premier League, Eredivisie) is now also correctly generated when you start a cup from the event page.

in the world cup page, it says there are 43 comments even though there are 30

Thanks, probably counting deleted comments as well

Erm why is eredivisie there before the Europa or Serie a lmao

Unsurprising because joshua is dutch

Joshua created best website : )

 

Hi Joshua! First I would like to thank you for all your work and say I really love what you do with it. It is really great!

I have some suggestions that I think will improve the experience using the simulator:

1. Substitutes: Right now the simulator takes random 3 players from the bench and bring them into the field, regardless their rating or position (except a GK). There should be an option to set up the 3 substitues while making the line-up (choosing the player who going out and the one who replace him). If that option is a bit comlex to create, at least the simulator should pick the best 3 players from the bench, the same way it picks the best 10 outfield players for the national teams. (I had a match when I put Mbappe on the bench for 'realism' and he didn't come in all the match).

2. Shirt Numbers: I think it will be cool and will improve the experience if each player will have a shirt/squad number. It won't affect the match, it will only be displayed on the line-up menu next to the players' position and in the match screen when the player do something in the game. In the national teams I guess it's more complicated so it can be automotic like the England national team thing when the starting 11 are always numbers 1-11.

(I know it can be really hard to go over every player and now add a number so if you want- my friends and I will be able to make an Excel/Google-Sheets file with the needed database of shirt numbers.)

3. Custom Nation's Flag: There is a bug for a couple of years by now that you can't see a custom nation's logo (with no difference if it's your mod or someone else's), and you just see the gray default badge. So it made me think- when fixing that, there should be no option while creating a new nation in the mod creator, and the nation's logo can be only rectangle that you can change its colors so it will represent the nation flag.

Again I will say that I love all of your work and and hopefully the simulator will be better and better. (And sorry if it is hard to understand me, English isn't my natural language)

I like your 3rd idea;

However, I would be against your 2nd idea. As someone who makes lots of mods, I would be against having to add more and more data. It will slow down the progress.

I use your mods and I understand what you say, but you can think about it like the fact you set the nationality to a player that his nation doesn't exist in the database (For example:  Kangwa from Crvena Zvezda who is from Zambia) so you already getting slow by adding a lot of data that doesn't affect the game. This data is there for fun and realism (:

really like your mods by the way 

Thank you!

 

On idea 1, i would also like substitution for goalkeepers especially for serious injuries (planned) and them being sent off. If all 3 subs are used or no sub gk is available then there should be an outfield player in goal with their name mentioned.

Thanks for the suggestions!

  1. There will be a way to deterimine your bench sizes + amount of substitutions later on. The idea of presetting who comes on for who, is interesting. Further down the line I would also like users to be able to make manual substitutions during the game.
  2. I was actually thinking about shirt numbers some time ago. I do have them available in my dataset, so that could work. And as for Larsson's concern, we could also just randomly generate shirt numbers
  3. Forgot about it a bit and you're right, I do want to add a flag editor, just haven't gotten to it yet.

Thanks for the kind words :)

Randomly generate? But why? They should be the real-life ones if implemented but change every season (e.g. bellingham 5 in madrid and 10 in england) and shirt numbers in national teams change over the season. I am against shirt numbers for that.

Hi Josh, here's some of my ideas for improving the simulator:

1. Adding the Czech League

Apart from the teams in Europe in 24-25 (Sparta, Slavia, Plzeň And Mladá Boleslav) the league Is absent. I'm currently working on a mod to add the other 12 teams, but considering it's a top 10 european League (better than Poland, Scotland...) I think it would be a great adition.

2. Adding Clean sheets to the Stats page for goalkeepers And appearences for all players

3. Adding "Recommended rotation"

In edit Line-ups rotation Is Very useful in a disbalanced fixture. But sometimes it can be hard to estimate how much to rotate without weakening the team too much. So I'd add "recommended rotation" which would be the ideal rotation ratio for the specific oponent they were playing.

4. Adding Play-offs

Many Leagues have Title/Middle/Relegation play-offs after the Regular round-robin League part (Czech republic, Scotland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium), during which the League Is divided into different parts based on League position And then play each other Once or twice within the group, adding to their overall points total.

5. Adding Match ratings And MOTM

After each match it would be cool to see player ratings /10 And the one with the highest would receive man of the match. Number of MOTM awards or average match rating could then be shown in the Stats page.

6. Giving teams a bye to the next round 

Let's say I have a 3 team knock-out elimination tournament which starts with a play-off between two teams. The winner plays the Third team in the final. That's Very good, exept you can't choose which team automaticaly advances to the final.

7. Adding VAR to matches

Imagine you score And then VAR dissallows it for offside. Or give a penalty against you. Infuriating, but realistic! :)

8. Adding the option of a 2-legged final

Some competitions, like the CAF Champions League play the final over 2 legs, at home, And Away. It would be interesting to have this option.

9. Adding "tiebreakers"

If two teams Finish on level points, their position Is Always decided by goal difference. Many Leagues use different tiebreakers like H2H. Could be given As An option when creating a tournament.

 

10. Increased Chance of red cards in derby matches

Each team could have a preset rival/rivals (Barcelona - Real Madrid/Espanyol) And in H2H matches the red card rate would be higher.

 

Obviously not all of these suggestions Are necessary And I don't know how realistic they Are, but I think they would even further improve an already great platform. Please let me know which ones you like And which ones could be made Real.

Thank you for your amazing work...i was wondering will you add more eurpean national team..??so far only 43 exist, the mod is fine but, without the flag..it felt something missing...thank you...

Hi, no usually we dont add extra teams or nations, with some exceptions. An option is to allow custom nations to reuse existing flags, that is in the backlog.

Hello guys, thought I might share this idea for a tournament format that I have been doing for, like, weeks now.

Since matchsimulator has 600-700 teams, I thought I could begin with 512 teams. Those teams will be divided into 16-team league tournaments. Overall, there would be 32 league tables.

The top four teams will go to a higher-tier championship matchup, while the 5th-8th ranks will go to, like, a second-tier championship matchup (i.e., UCL and Europa League). The rest would be instantly eliminated.

The qualified teams of each rank (1st, 2nd, 3rd...) will be randomized to have a one-round elimination match. Whoever wins proceeds to the next round. So for example, teams that won first in their respective brackets will have a one-on-one match; the winner proceeds.

The next step is that the winning teams will be split into groups, and they will be in a group stage matchup, but only one team from each group will qualify. There are 16 teams left per ranking, so that means, they would be split in groups of four.

So the winning teams would proceed to the RO16. Winners from 1st face winners from 4th, and 2nd faces winners from 3rd. The winning teams would go to the quarters, semis, and finals.

I don't know if this is understandable but if you want some clarifications, let me know.

Yes, I love that Idea but, I thunk mine's great too