Torneo Alternative for Football Tournaments
Both are free. One publishes your league to Sofascore, the other runs the clock on the screen at the pitch.
Torneo by Sofascore is free football league and tournament software: no limit on competitions, apps for iOS and Android, and eligible competitions appear on Sofascore, which Torneo says has more than 50 million users. It runs leagues, knockouts and groups into knockout; double elimination is listed as coming soon. JudgeMate is also free for organisers and covers the matchday itself: a running clock with halves, extra time, stoppage time, cards and a penalty shoot-out that you can put on a screen at the ground, two-legged knockout ties decided on aggregate, and a QR code per match for the referee. If exposure for your players matters most, Torneo is the stronger choice. If you need the scoreboard at the venue, JudgeMate does that job.
What Torneo is
Torneo is the competition manager from Sofascore, the live score app. It used to live at torneo.sofascore.com and now runs at torneo.com. You create a league or cup, add teams, set lineups and enter results. The table updates itself and knockout rounds advance on their own.
Football comes first on their list, followed by futsal, minifootball, basketball, volleyball, water polo, rugby, tennis and handball. Padel is marked as coming soon. Ice hockey is not on the list.
The football detail is good. Lineups take captains, substitutions, missing players, kit colours and starting positions, in a pitch view or a list. You can score a match live in full detail or type the final result in the evening. Player profiles keep positions, shirt numbers and stats from one season to the next.
Sofascore is the main draw. Eligible competitions are published there, fans can follow your matches and get notified when they go live. Torneo describes its own scale as more than 2,100,000 games, 100,000 teams and 160 countries; those are their own figures.
The site is in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French, and the apps run on iOS, Android and the web.
Pricing
Both tools cost an organiser nothing for the core job.
| Torneo | JudgeMate | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for organisers | Free. Their FAQ: "Yes, completely free." | Free: events, results and live scoreboards |
| Competitions per account | No limit, per their FAQ | No limit |
| Paid layer | A partnership for advanced features, bulk data import and dedicated support. Price not published | None |
| Account to organise | Yes, a free account | Yes for a tournament; a single scoreboard can be started without one |
| Account to watch | No, fans follow on Sofascore | No, public event page and scoreboard link |
If you run a large association, read the partnership line: bulk import and support are only available there, and the terms are agreed one by one.
Feature comparison for a football event
Torneo is built around the record of a competition: lineups, stats and player history. JudgeMate is built around running the match day: the clock, the screen and the referee's phone. The table follows that line.
| Capability | Torneo | JudgeMate |
|---|---|---|
| League | Round robin, single or double, automatic standings | Round robin and a match-day league schedule |
| Knockout | Cup brackets of any size | Knockout with a third-place match and an optional consolation round |
| Groups then knockout | Yes, "two-stage" | Yes: with one group, 2, 4 or 8 go through; with 2 to 4 groups, 1 or 2 from each; with 3 groups, 1 or 2 best of the rest join them |
| Double elimination | Listed as coming soon | No |
| Two-legged ties | Not mentioned in their format list | Yes, in a knockout draw: aggregate score, shoot-out if level, no away goals |
| Match clock | Live scoring in detail is described; a running clock for a venue screen is not mentioned | Clock counting up, two halves of 45 minutes, extra time 2 x 15, stoppage time |
| Penalty shoot-out | Not described on their product page | Scored and missed per side, five kicks then sudden death, the operator confirms the end |
| Cards | Named in a customer quote on their homepage | Yellow and red; a second yellow turns red automatically |
| Venue screen | A screen at the ground is not mentioned; fans follow in the Sofascore app, and live standings can be embedded on your own website | Display view of the scoreboard for a TV, LED wall or projector |
| Who enters the score | Anyone managing the competition, with a free Torneo account | The organiser, or the referee or scoreboard operator through the match's QR code. In group, round-robin and league matches the organiser can let teams report results, and the other side confirms. Knockout, consolation and third-place matches are closed by the organiser or the referee |
| Lineups and substitutions | Captains, substitutions, starting positions | Squad list per club, 23 by default; substitutions are not logged on the scoreboard |
| Player career profiles | Yes, stats kept season after season | No stats; a player with an account has a profile listing their events |
| Published to Sofascore | Eligible competitions | No |
| Native apps | iOS and Android | Web only |
| Printouts | Not mentioned | Match slips, a drawn bracket and a club list as PDF |
| Ice hockey | Not supported | Supported, with timed penalties on the scoreboard |
When Torneo is the better pick
Choose Torneo if the competition is meant to be seen far beyond the touchline.
- You want your league on Sofascore. Eligible competitions sit in an app used by more than 50 million fans, and those fans get a notification when your match kicks off. We cannot offer anything close to that.
- Player history matters. In youth football parents and scouts look for numbers. Torneo keeps positions, shirt numbers and stats from season to season, and builds a profile per player.
- You record full lineups. Captains, starting positions, missing players and substitutions go into the match record. Our scoreboard takes a squad but does not log substitutions.
- Your staff live in apps. iOS and Android apps for the organiser are a real convenience at a club with several volunteers.
- You need double elimination soon. It is on their list as coming soon; it is not on ours.
- Your season is long. A league can be played once or twice through (home and away), and the table updates itself.
When JudgeMate is the better pick
Choose JudgeMate if the hard part is the match day at the ground.
- The crowd watches a screen at the pitch. The football scoreboard runs a clock through both halves, extra time and stoppage time, shows cards and the penalty shoot-out, and has a display view for a TV or projector. Stoppage time is added in one-minute steps or with +1, +3 and +5 buttons.
- Your cup has two legs. In a knockout draw you can switch on home and away ties. The aggregate decides, a level aggregate goes to a shoot-out, and away goals do not count, in line with UEFA, which dropped the rule from the 2021/22 season.
- Referees enter the result. When you start the live scoreboard for a match, it gets its own QR code. The referee scans it on the pitch and runs that one match's scoreboard, without an account. The code disappears once the result is confirmed. Torneo's FAQ says creating and managing a competition needs an account.
- Clubs should not have to sign up. In a club tournament where you enter the teams yourself, each club goes in by name and no player needs an account.
- A shoot-out has to be right. The scoreboard counts five kicks each and then sudden death, as in IFAB Law 10, and leaves the final confirmation to the operator.
- The draw comes off a printer. Match slips, a drawn bracket and the club list export as PDF for the noticeboard and the referees' room.
- The bracket feeds the scoreboard. Start the scoreboard from a match in the draw, and when the match ends confirm the result back into the bracket.
- Ice hockey is on the same club calendar. Torneo has no ice hockey; JudgeMate has a scoreboard with timed penalties and the same club tournament formats.
Start with the football live scoreboard, read the football scoreboard guide, or create a football tournament. For a quick draw without an account there is the bracket generator.
Where JudgeMate falls short
Against Torneo, these are the gaps an organiser will notice.
- No audience. Your matches do not appear in any score app. Nobody gets a notification when your final kicks off.
- No player stats across seasons. A player with an account has a public profile listing their public events, but no stats, positions or shirt numbers. A player entered under a club name in a club tournament has no profile at all. A scout looking for your under-15 striker's numbers will not find them through us.
- No substitutions on the scoreboard. The football scoreboard logs goals and cards. Substitutions and temporary dismissals (sin bins) are not recorded.
- No double elimination. Formats are round robin, knockout and groups into knockout.
- No native app. JudgeMate runs in the browser on any phone, with no App Store download.
- No notifications, no payments. No email, SMS or push. Entry fees are recorded as paid or waived, never collected.
- No federation link. Nothing connects to a national FA's competition system, and we have no approved match report.
- One scoreboard per match, started by hand. A whole round cannot be pushed to scoreboards in one click.
Using both
The two tools do different jobs, so they can sit side by side.
- Keep the official record in Torneo if you want the league on Sofascore and player stats over the season.
- Run the clock in JudgeMate on match days with a screen: start a football scoreboard, share the display link with whoever runs the TV, and copy the final score into Torneo afterwards.
- Use JudgeMate for one-off cups that need two legs, referee QR codes or printed slips, and keep the season league in Torneo.
- Expect double typing. Nothing syncs between the two. Teams and results entered in both are entered twice.
For the football rules behind the scoreboard, see how football scoring works.
Try JudgeMate on your next event
A football event takes about 10 minutes to configure. No athlete limits, no commission on registrations. See football features · Run the League table presets (head-to-head first / goal difference first) calculator