Fair playing time in junior soccer: rolling subs, the keeper and the maths
The maths of a fair game at 4, 7 and 9-a-side, what the national rules say about playing time, rotation patterns for every bench size, a fair way to share the gloves, and what to say to the parent who’s been counting.
Junior soccer hands every coach two jobs nobody mentions at sign-on.
The stopwatch. From U6 to U11 the national rules let subs roll on and off at any time, so game time is in your hands. With 12 players and 9 on for two 25-minute halves, a fair game is 37½ minutes each. Ask most coaches what their spread was last week and they’d have to guess. Some parents think they know.
The memory. Who’s played what, who’s owed minutes, who arrived late, who had the gloves. All of it held in your head while you coach, with subs going on all game.
This guide is the system for both. Every table in it is arithmetic you can check yourself.
1 The maths of a fair game
Total player-minutes are fixed. Nine on for two 25-minute halves is 450 player-minutes, however many kids turn up. Fair share is that number divided by the players who did.
Football Australia’s MiniRoos national playing formats, which cover U6 to U11, say: “Equal playing time should be a priority ensuring all players regardless of age, gender and/or ability get to take the field.” Here’s what that looks like in minutes.
fair share = (game minutes × 9 on the field) ÷ players who turned up
| Ages | On the field | Halves | Player-minutes | Subs (max) | Team sheet (max) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U6, U7 | 4, no keeper | 2 × 20 | 160 | 3 | 7 |
| U8, U9 | 7 incl. keeper | 2 × 20 | 280 | 4 | 11 |
| U10, U11 | 9 incl. keeper | 2 × 25 | 450 | 5 | 14 |
| Players at the game | 2 × 25 min (50-min game) | Share of the game | Bench |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 45 min | 90% | 1 |
| 11 | ~41 min | ~82% | 2 |
| 12 | 37½ min | 75% | 3 |
| 13 | ~35 min | ~69% | 4 |
| 14 | ~32 min | ~64% | 5 |
Football Australia’s Game Time Policy Template for clubs (“Adjust the details to suit the values of your club.”) suggests “EQUAL GAME TIME” for U6 to U11 and a “MINIMUM HALF GAME TIME” for U12 to U18. Fair share sits well above half anyway: even with 14 kids at 9-a-side it’s about 32 of the 50 minutes. That’s our arithmetic, not a rule.
Two things to take from the table
Fair doesn’t mean equal to the minute. Subs land in blocks of your rotation time, so a few minutes’ spread in one game is a well-run bench, and the season evens it out.
The bench size shapes your rhythm. With 12, three kids are off at any moment and each sits 12½ of the 50 minutes. With 14, five are off and each sits about 18.
2 Why memory fails
Nobody sets out to give a kid 20 minutes. It happens through three drifts every coach will recognise.
Close-game drift. Scores level, ten to go, and your strongest players somehow haven’t come off since half time. It happens with nothing to play for: under the national formats there’s no points table and no published result at these ages. The kid who sat out the last ten minutes every week remembers anyway.
Quiet-kid drift. The kid who tugs your sleeve gets subbed on. The kid who never asks doesn’t. With rolling subs nothing forces a change, so the confident kids compound.
Game-day chaos. Under the national rules subs can go on while the ball is in play (some associations wait for a stoppage, so check yours), the keeper needs sorting for the second half, and two kids arrive after kick-off needing a warm-up. The plan in your head doesn’t survive game day.
Underneath all three: rolling subs have no memory
Football Australia’s national rules say “Players may be rotated on and off the field at any time during the game.” That’s a dozen or more changes and no stoppage that forces a reset. Half time looks like a fresh start, but the minutes carry, and a keeper’s half in goal is 25 minutes on the field that’s easy to leave out of the count. In Kickd the second half starts from where the first finished, and every kid’s minutes carry with it.
3 Rotation patterns that work
One rule beats every clever pattern:
On a fixed rhythm, swap the longest-on players for the longest-off players.
Here’s that rule at 9-a-side over 2 × 25. The minutes are only a guide: set whatever rotation time suits your team, anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes in Kickd.
| Bench | The pattern | How it lands |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (10 players) | One off, one on, each rotation. | Everyone sits 5 minutes, plays 45. |
| 2 (11) | Swap both each rotation. | Everyone sits about 9, plays about 41. |
| 3 (12) | Swap all three, or two at a time (SUBS PER ROTATION 2). | Everyone plays 37½, sits 12½. |
| 4 (13) | Two waves of two. | Everyone plays about 35, sits about 15. |
| 5 (14) | Two waves, three then two. | Everyone plays about 32, sits about 18. |
Three habits that guarantee an unfair spread
“My best kids start both halves.” Close-game drift with a plan.
“She doesn’t mind the bench.” She does; she just doesn’t ask. Quiet-kid drift.
“I’ll even it up in the second half.” By then you’re running a game, a keeper and two late arrivals. Game-day chaos wins.
In numbers, with a bench of three: the best nine start and three change at half time. Six kids play all 50, three play 25 and three play 25. Same 450 player-minutes, and half the team got half a game.
Share the gloves (from U8)
U6 and U7 play “4-a-side with no goalkeeper”. From U8, Football Australia’s Game Time Policy Template for clubs suggests the gloves rotate too: “a coach may rotate a player into the goalkeeper position for one half then have time on the field in the other half.” That’s guidance to adapt, not a rule. Without a plan the gloves drift to the agreeable kid who never complains. Swap the keeper at half time and the table above still holds. Kickd records who’s in goal each half (the gold GK spot) and the alarm never rotates the keeper; who gets the gloves is your plan.
Rotate within lines, if you want to
Tag players Forward, Mid or Defence on the TEAM tab and the pairing prefers the same line: a tagged bench player jumps the queue for a matching spot, and nobody is skipped. Leave the tags off for juniors you want trying every position.
4 The parent who’s been counting comes over at half time
The second version isn’t just easier. It’s the version that keeps a parent onside for the whole season, because the answer is a number and a plan, not an opinion. Without a system it’s a clipboard, a stopwatch and guesswork while you run the warm-up and answer “when’s Archie on?” from behind the fence; the keeper gets left out of the count and half time is spent arguing about who’s owed what. With one, auto-fill picks the starting team from who turned up, least season minutes first, gold GK spot included; the alarm names who’s next; a sub is two taps; every kid’s minutes sit on their name; and the second half starts from where the first ended.
5 The season view
A single game will never be perfectly even. Kids arrive late, someone can’t continue, a wave runs long. What matters is the season.
Football Victoria’s club handbook makes the same point: “Ideally, this would involve all Players receiving equal game time either on a weekly basis, or over the course of the season.”
Every junior match (U6 to U11) gets a Fairness % in Kickd: the least-used player’s minutes as a percentage of the most-used player’s. Players who genuinely couldn’t take the field that day are excluded. The keeper counts like everyone else, so a keeper who stays in goal all game sets the top of the range. Your stats screen keeps the season average and a week-by-week chart.
Don’t chase 100%. The keeper counts, and minutes come in blocks of your rotation time. With the keeper swapped at half, the best a 9-a-side game can reach at a 5-minute rotation is about the high 80s, and most good weeks land a little under that. A keeper who stays in all game caps it at roughly 60 to 80.
Two ways coaches actually use it
In the team chat. “Fairness this week: 86%.” One line, posted before anyone asks, and the counting-parent problem largely stops.
As the season’s honesty check. If the number dips three weeks running, that’s close-game drift showing up in the data before it shows up as an end-of-season phone call.
6 What this takes on game day
Everything above runs off one habit: tap the subs as they happen. The app does the rest, live:
- Fair-share lineup. Auto-fill puts the kids with the fewest season minutes on first.
- First half only. The second half starts from where the first finished, keeper included, and you can change it at the break.
- Rotation alarm at your rotation time, with SUBS PER ROTATION for a big bench. It shows who’s going on for who and never pulls the keeper.
- Every kid’s minutes, live. The ones with the most so far turn amber; the keeper’s chip never does.
- Subs in two taps (field player, then bench). Tap two field players to swap their positions. Goals in two taps, with the minute each went in. The Undo bar names what it will undo.
- A player who can’t continue: long-press, tap Mark Unavailable, then tap who fills the spot. Not Here, Mark Absent clears a no-show’s minutes; + Add to Game brings in a late arrival.
- Phone in your pocket. The clock keeps running with a live timer on the lock screen, and the alerts still come through.
- A Fairness % after every game and the season chart, U6 to U11.
- Players’ Player. With PLAYERS’ PLAYER on (TEAM tab), parents tap their child’s pick for an hour after full time, one vote per child. You pick Player of the Match on Results and can change it until the hour is up.
- Parents follow along: live score and clock on their phones, team totals only at U6 to U11. They join free with the team’s join link; no accounts for the kids.
Already keeping minutes on the back of the team sheet? This is the same job, done while the game is on. One phone, two taps a sub.
Run it on your team at your next game
Kickd is built for soccer, U6 to Opens, with a formation picker for 4, 7, 9 and 11-a-side. Rotation alarms and live minutes are on for every team out of the box, and every junior match (U6 to U11) gets a Fairness %. From U12 you get the alarm and every player’s minutes without the Fairness %. No hardware, nothing to charge. Coaches hold the pass; parents join free with the team’s join link.
- Set up your team in ten minutes: players, age group and your association’s half length.
- Run the built-in Tutorial Game once on the couch. It walks you through subs, goals and your Player of the Match pick at ten times speed, and nothing is saved.
- Run your next real game with it and post your Fairness % in the team chat.
Your first three matches are free, no card needed. After that, a Team Pass covers everything in this guide for the whole team, for the season. Coaching a U13+ side? Team Stats adds the full stat set on top: shots on and off target, assists, tackles won, intercepts, fouls won and conceded and own goals, per player, all season. Team Stats also logs keeper saves from U8. Both include Kickd Callout: say “rotate now” or “goal seven” and it’s logged. Try it on your phone mic at training; on match day a Bluetooth headset with a boom mic keeps it hands free.
The Soccer Game Day Playbook is the designed, printable version of this guide. Pricing is on the pricing page.
Quotes are from Football Australia’s National Playing Formats and Rules (effective from 1 January 2015) and its Game Time Policy Template for clubs, and Football Victoria’s 2026 Competitions Club Handbook. Kickd is independent of Football Australia and runs beside your association’s own systems, never in place of the team sheet.