How do I plan next season's squads?

Next season's squads take shape on the same Squads page you use for this season, from the moment your club creates the new season. You can read the provisional lineup as a list, or arrange an age group into a formation on a pitch. Everything on these screens is a plan — nothing here sends an offer or registers a player.

Once your club has created next season, a Season dropdown appears at the top of the programme's Squads page. Leave it on the current year for the squads you have today; choose the next year — labelled (planning) — to see how next season is shaping up. Once the programme's season has finished (or before a new programme's first season starts), the page opens on next season by itself, and it remembers the year you pick until that default changes.

Beside it you'll find a squad filter, but only where the programme runs more than one age group. A programme with a single team has nothing to filter down to, so the control is left off.

While nobody has been placed on next season's squads, the planning view is a provisional lineup, not a team sheet. It is built live from your retention offers, so it changes on its own as families respond:

• Players are grouped by the age group each one is being kept for, so a current U12 appears under U13.
• Players joining from another programme appear here too, labelled with the squad they are in this season (for example from MJDL U12). Their current TD sees the same move as a departure on their own retention board.
• Each row says how firm the place is: Confirmed once it is held, Awaiting deposit where the family has accepted but the money hasn't landed, Deposit refunded, or Offer sent / Offer viewed while you're still waiting on a reply.
• Anyone whose next-season age group hasn't been set yet is collected under Age group not yet set — set their squad on the retention board and they move into the right group.

A few things the planning view deliberately does not do: it has no Add player button and no team managers. Neither exists for a season that hasn't started — players are placed and managers appointed once the programme moves into that season.

It does have Export, which saves the players listed, by age group if you have picked one, with a Place column showing where each offer stands.

See How do retention offers, payments and deadlines work? for how a player gets onto this list in the first place.

Once players are on next season's squads, choosing that year shows the real squads, like this season's, and the dropdown reads plain 2027. Add player works on the season the programme is in.

Below them, Accepted, not yet on the roster lists anyone who accepted a place but isn't in a squad yet. If the squads fail to load, the page says Couldn't load the squads rather than showing offers.

Each age group on the planning view has a List | Pitch switch on the right of its heading. List is the provisional lineup described above. Pitch turns that age group into a formation you can arrange by hand — the players down the left, the pitch on the right.

Everything on the pitch is a plan. Placing a player changes nothing about their offer, and nothing here sends one.

Putting a team together

1. Pick the shape with the formation button under the pitch. The shapes match the format the age group plays — 7v7, 9v9 or 11v11 — so you can't pick one the team never lines up in.
2. Drag a player from the left onto a position, or tap their row to drop them into the first free one.
3. Drop a player onto a position that's already taken to swap the two, or onto the small cover spots that appear beneath a position to keep them as second or third choice there. Drag a cover player onto the shirt above them to make them first choice.
4. To take someone off, tap their card, or drag it back over the player list — it turns into Drop to take off the pitch.

A player you can still drag has a grip on the right of their row. A player already out there stays in the left-hand list, faded, with a marker showing where they are. The list is your retention pool, so it keeps answering the question you're really asking: who's left.

Blue and White on one card

For a Mixed JDL age group the pitch plans both colour teams, behind a Blue | White switch floating over the pitch with each team's count on it. Switching is instant and both teams stay loaded. A player can only be in one of them — drop someone onto the team you're looking at and they leave the other one in the same move. The heading counts them per team, for example Blue 9 · White 7 on the pitch, so you can see at a glance if the second team has been forgotten.

Every other programme — Girls JDL included — plans one team per age group, so there's no switch and no second count.

Planning for players you haven't signed

Switch the left-hand list to Targets for the recruits in your pipeline for that age group. Each one carries the stage they are at — Identified, Contacted, Trial, Offered, or Declined — so you can see how real they are before you build a team around them. They drag onto the pitch like anyone else and show as dashed, because no offer has been made. Add target stays docked at the foot of the list while it scrolls, and opens the usual recruitment form — search Dribl or type the player in by hand — already pointed at the right programme and age group. Anyone you add appears in your recruitment pipeline as normal; this is not a separate list.

Saving, and working with your colleagues

Arrangements save themselves a moment after you stop moving players, and they belong to the club, not to you — every TD and admin who can see the programme sees the same team. If someone else saves the same age group while you have it open, their version replaces yours on screen and Clubhouse tells you why rather than quietly overwriting one of you. If a save can't reach us you'll see Unsaved — check your connection under the pitch; your work stays on screen and keeps trying.

Which view each age group opens in is remembered for you, per age group, on the device you set it on. Plan U14 on the pitch and read U9 as a list, and that's what you'll come back to.