SportsPress for Football (Soccer)

The own goal is the goal that must stay off the scorers table

A tight match, a cross into the box and a defender deflects the ball into his own net. The goal has to be recorded on the club site, but that same player should not appear as his team's scorer in the internal ranking or on his personal profile.

In a statistics system built for many sports, a goal is a number added to a player, and soccer has one case where that addition distorts the data. If you log it as a normal goal, the statistics lie. If you do not log it, the match summary is incomplete.

SportsPress for Football (Soccer), from ThemeBoy, is the extension that adapts SportsPress to this sport. Its central piece is dedicated own goal handling, and it also adjusts the vocabulary and identity of the panel.

How an own goal is recorded and shown

On activation, the extension creates a performance type called Own Goals. From there:

• Off the box score: own goals do not appear in the box score or in the match stats comparison bar.
• In the summary: they are added to the scoring summary, so the goal stays on record.
• Two ways to see it: a red ball in Icon mode or the OG notation in Values mode.
• Translatable: the OG text can be changed in the text options, useful if you prefer "AG" or "p.p." on your site.

The SportsPress soccer preset completes the numeric side: it generates fixtures and results, calculates points and goal difference, and subtracts own goals from player statistics.

A panel that talks about clubs and matches

SportsPress serves many sports, so its starting language is general. The extension leaves soccer as the default sport and changes several labels: events become matches, teams are shown as clubs and venues as grounds.

It also replaces the SportsPress icon in the panel with a soccer ball. It looks like a small detail, but vocabulary matters when the person entering results is a club volunteer and not whoever built the site.

The extension does not replace SportsPress

It does not work alone: it needs the SportsPress plugin installed, which is the source of club and player profiles, league tables, the calendar and venues with maps. This piece adds the soccer-specific layer.

Nor does it include modules such as tournaments, scoreboards or sponsors, which belong to SportsPress Pro. And data does not arrive by itself: matches are entered by hand or imported by CSV with the base plugin's tools.

The extension is published as a beta. Try it first on a copy of the site and record a match with an own goal to check how the score, the summary and the statistics look before using it with real data.

Building a club site step by step

You need WordPress with SportsPress. It works with any theme, though it may call for some style adjustments. The route is this:

1. Install and activate SportsPress and this extension.
2. In SportsPress, Settings, General, set the timezone and check that the sport is Association Football (Soccer).
3. If you want to see how it looks, import the demo content.
4. In Configure, review outcomes, player performances, tables and metrics.
5. Create competitions and seasons.
6. Add clubs, players, staff and matches, or import them by CSV from Tools, Import.

If match, club or player pages break after an update, save the permalinks again under Settings.

Themes and editions to go further

If you run a whole competition, SportsPress Pro is the edition that adds the tournament, scoreboard and sponsor modules. To publish match reports alongside the data, The League is a sports news theme compatible with SportsPress.

If you want a design for the club, the catalog includes Spoclub and the Elementor kit Goalix.

Questions from whoever runs the club site

Can I use it without SportsPress?

No. It is an extension and needs that plugin active.

Does the own goal show up in the match?

Yes, in the scoring summary, with a red ball or the OG notation depending on the mode.

Can I change the OG letters?

Yes, from the text options.

Does it work with my current theme?

It works with any theme, though it may need style adjustments.

Can I import players and matches?

Yes, with the SportsPress CSV importers, under Tools, Import.

Does it include tournaments?

The tournaments module belongs to SportsPress Pro.