veldplanTACTICS BOARD
Your tactical workspace
PassPlay & setupBall

Swipe toward a teammate. The board pauses at arrival.

Drag a player to move themSwipe the ball, or tap ball then teammate ↗

About Veldplan

A coaching aid

This board helps you explore spacing and structure. Automatic positioning is a close approximation based on the ball, players and selected settings—not a simulation of real player decisions. Use it as a starting point, then adjust it with your coaching judgement.

Start in Practice

On opening the app or site, Practice lets you try the controls without creating a board. New board starts a fresh board; Open loads a saved board. Practice changes are temporary.

Coach’s office is at the far right of the lower dark-green bar. The gear beside Full screen opens Settings. The Zonal / Man-marking button in Play & setup switches the defensive approach; its hover names the next approach.

Using the board

  1. Build a situation. Choose shapes beside the team captions at the top of the pitch, or use Free design to line players up on the sidelines and drag them into place. Drag any player directly.
  2. Place the ball. Turn on Free ball and drag it. Place it on a player and turn Free ball off to attach it. Attacker swaps the team in possession.
  3. Explore a pass. Tap the ball then a teammate, or swipe the ball toward them. Straight passes can be intercepted along the route; lofted passes are contested near arrival. The board pauses when the ball arrives.
  4. Link passes. Select Multi-pass, tap receivers in order, then Play. Tap the last receiver again to remove that selection. Multi-pass switches off when finished.
  5. Get positioning help. Set positions arranges both teams around the ball. Zonal protects areas; man-marking follows assigned opponents. Lock positions keeps other players still while you drag. Double-click a player to select one or more players and set their speed above the field. Free design keeps manual placements until you explicitly request a setup.
  6. Study space. The Crowding and lanes icon in the Pass group highlights pressure and passing routes. In Coach’s office → Playbook, Demonstrate crowding sits beside New play. It has two animated examples; Next example switches between them. Return to office restores your board and reopens the playbook.
  7. Set up your teams. Open Coach’s office to assign names, shirt numbers and speed to each formation position, choose team colors, and save teams. Its Playbook section records and manages plays. Apply team edits before switching sides or closing the office.
  8. Adjust and compare. Drag players to refine any suggestion. Use Undo and Redo, Replay the last pass, or slow playback. Reset players keeps settings. Save board before refreshing; Open restores a saved board.

On a phone

Tools opens settings and file actions. Use + and − to zoom. Turn on Pan to drag the view without moving players; turn it off to edit. Fit shows the whole field again. Swipe the bottom toolbar sideways for more actions. In the play editor, More expands the controls.

Build a play

Arrows show saved movement order: solid lines are player runs, dashed yellow lines are passes. Curved passes are lofted; straight passes stay on the ground. Choose Pass type for each step. Matching numbers happen in the same step. Use Arrows to hide or show them while editing.

New play and Edit open the field editor. Choose a step, move players and set Ball ends with. Update step keeps the current layout in your draft; Next step builds another step. Changes also stay in the draft when you switch steps or preview. Save play stores them on this device. Done returns to the playbook.

  1. Set up the starting positions on the field. Open Coach’s office → Playbook → New play. Give the play a name.
  2. Choose Next step in the field editor to open Build next step. It starts from the last step of your play. Drag players to where this step ends; other players stay still.
  3. Choose Ball ends with to select the receiver. Keep the same player for a run without a pass. Choose Free ball to place the ball anywhere.
  4. Press Add step once. All these movements become one step and play together. Cancel discards this step and restores your board.
  5. For a give-and-go: first pass to a teammate while moving the passer forward, then add a second step with the return pass. Use a separate step whenever one action must happen before another.
  6. Repeat Next step and Add step, then Play to watch and Save play to keep it. To change an existing step, choose it in the Step list and edit its positions. Nothing is saved permanently until you choose Save play.

Each step contains at most one pass. Runs and that pass happen together. Place defenders too if you want them to move; saved plays show your planned movement, without recalculating marking, interceptions or offside.

Draw a player’s route

In Edit, choose the destination step after the starting board, select a player and choose Draw path. Drag from the highlighted starting position and release to finish. The highlighted trail stays visible so you can check it before saving, even with Arrows hidden. Add a new step before drawing its routes.

Redraw path replaces the route. Cancel drawing or Escape keeps the previous route. Clear path restores a straight run. Dragging the endpoint normally also clears its drawn route. Save play keeps the change. Existing saved curved runs still play correctly.

Pause and discuss

During saved-play playback, Pause freezes the action. Move players or the ball to discuss a situation; Resume restores the paused positions and continues the original play. These discussion changes are temporary. Use Edit and Save play for permanent changes.

When playback finishes, Return to list opens the playbook and Play again repeats it. To board returns to the board, or to the field editor if you were editing.

Your saved data

The desktop app works offline. Teams and plays stay in this app or browser profile; they do not automatically sync between them or between devices. Save board downloads a board file; Open loads it. Save play stores a play in the local playbook. Export teams and plays for backups or transfer. Exported files are not encrypted.