Phases: types and setup

A tournament in Torneyo is a sequence of phases inside each category. Each phase has a type, an order and its own set of rules. The standings of one phase feed the next: whoever finishes in a qualifying spot enters the following phase automatically.

If you are still choosing the overall format, start with Competition formats. This article is the next step: how to set up each phase, field by field.

How phases chain together

• Order defines the sequence. The phase with order 1 receives the teams registered in the category. The others receive the qualifiers from the phase immediately before.
• Teams qualifying is the total leaving the phase, not “per group”. In a group stage with 4 groups and 8 qualifiers, 2 advance from each group.
• The next phase can only be generated once every fixture of the previous one has a result. If a score is missing, the system warns and does not generate.
• Name, type, order and structure (groups, format, home and away) lock as soon as the phase has fixtures generated. Tiebreakers, zones and card limits stay editable, and the standings are recalculated immediately.

Tip The ready-made templates (Groups + Knockout, League, Knockout, GSL, Swiss) create all phases at once, already chained. Pick a template and adjust only what differs in your rulebook.

The three phase types

Type	How it works	When to use
Round robin	Single table, everyone plays everyone, single round or home and away	League, points-based season, few teams
Groups	Teams are split into groups and play round robin inside the group	First stage before a knockout
Knockout	Elimination ties in a bracket; the loser is out	Round of 16, quarters, semis, final

Two special formats build on these types:

• GSL (double elimination inside the group) is a group-stage format common in esports. Each group of 4 settles its qualifiers in 5 matches instead of 6.
• Swiss system has its own setup screen (rounds, points for a win, draw, loss and bye). Pairings are by score and nobody plays the same opponent twice.

Fields shared by every phase

Field	What it does
Name	Shown in standings, match sheets and public pages (“Group Stage”, “Quarter-finals”)
Order	Position of the phase in the category sequence
Teams qualifying	Total number of teams advancing to the next phase
Teams relegated	How many drop to the division below. Used in leagues with promotion and relegation, paints the red zone of the table
Home and away	Two rounds. In a knockout, ties become two-legged
Yellows for suspension	How many accumulated yellow cards trigger an automatic one-match suspension. Default: 2
Reset cards in this phase	The yellow-card count restarts from zero when this phase begins
Max fixtures per round	Caps how many fixtures the generator places in each round, useful with a single court
Third-place match	Only meaningful in the final phase: creates the match between the semi-final losers

Tiebreakers

You build the list in the order of your rulebook and the system applies it top to bottom. When a criterion does not separate the teams, it moves to the next. Available criteria include points, wins, goal difference, goals for, goals against, head-to-head (Brazilian standard or UEFA/FIFA model), fewest goals conceded in the tie, cards and drawing lots. The difference between the two head-to-head models is explained in Competition formats.

Standings zones

These are the colored bands of the table: “Qualified” in green, “Relegated” in red, or whatever you need, such as “Champions League” and “Europa League”. If you configure no zones, the system derives the bands from Teams qualifying and Teams relegated. Positions are always relative to the group.

Group stage

On top of the shared fields, the group stage has the following.

Field	What it does
Group format	Round robin (everyone plays everyone inside the group) or GSL
Number of groups	How many groups will be drawn
Max teams per group	Size of each group. With 11 teams in 3 groups of up to 4, one group ends up with 3
Group seeding	A note on how groups will be defined (Draw, Manual or Scheduled). It documents the plan for your staff; the actual mode is chosen on the draw screen
Direct spots per group	How many teams from each group advance directly. Example: 2
Best-placed spots	Extra spots contested across groups by the next position. Example: the 2 best third-placed teams

Drawing the groups

Once groups are configured, the draw screen offers four modes:

• Random: distributes teams at random, in a balanced way.
• Seeded: you pick one seed per group and the rest is drawn. Some sports require this mode.
• Manual: you drag each team into the group you want, handy for separating teams from the same town.
• Roulette: live draw, one team at a time, to broadcast at the technical meeting.

The draw can be redone as many times as you like while no fixture has a result.

Who advances: direct spots and best-placed teams

There are two ways to define who leaves the group stage.

Default mode. Fill in only Teams qualifying. The system divides that total by the number of groups. The remainder becomes best-placed spots. With 3 groups and 8 qualifiers, that is 2 per group plus the 2 best third-placed teams.

Explicit mode. Fill in Direct spots per group and Best-placed spots. Same math, but declared, and the system checks that it adds up: direct × groups + best-placed must equal Teams qualifying. If it does not, the screen warns and generating the next phase is blocked until you fix it.

Best-placed teams are compared with each other like this:

1. By the phase tiebreakers, without the head-to-head criteria, since teams from different groups never met.
2. If the groups have different sizes, the first criterion becomes points per game (points won divided by points available). A team with 3 points from 2 matches (50%) ranks above one with 3 points from 3 matches (33%), because comparing raw points would favor whoever played more often.
3. The phase tiebreakers separate equal ratios.

The table already highlights in green who is qualified under the current calculation, including the best third-placed teams, and the highlight changes with every result entered.

Note Local rulebooks often say “the top two of each group qualify plus the two best third-placed teams” without saying how to compare third-placed teams from groups of 3 and 4. If your rulebook is silent, points per game is the criterion Torneyo applies. If it defines another rule, such as discarding the result against the last-placed team, record it in the technical meeting minutes and adjust the standings manually with a points adjustment.

Knockout

On top of the shared fields, the knockout has match definition (Draw, Previous phase standings, Manual or Scheduled). It is a note on how ties will be built, useful for the rulebook and your staff. The actual choice happens on the fixture generation screen, where you pick between:

• Automatic bracket: in the first phase, registration order sets the positions and the bracket is mirrored (1st against last, 2nd against second-to-last). In later phases, the direct qualifiers of each group enter first, in group order, followed by the best-placed teams, with the same mirrored pairing.
• Draw: shuffles the teams before building the bracket. First phase only.
• Manual: you build each tie. First phase only.

Bracket, byes and two legs

• When the number of teams is not a power of two (4, 8, 16, 32), the best positions get a bye and skip the first round. It is not an error or an arbitrary privilege: it is the only way to close the bracket.
• With Home and away checked, each tie becomes two-legged. The winner is decided on aggregate; if the aggregate is level, on away goals; if still level, on the penalties recorded in the second leg.
• Without home and away, a draw in normal time is decided on the penalties entered in the match sheet.
• Check Third-place match only in the final phase. The match between the semi-final losers is created together with the final.

Typical chain

A Groups + Knockout template with 16 teams creates five linked phases: Group Stage (4 groups of 4, 8 qualifiers), Quarter-finals (8 in, 4 qualifiers), Semi-finals (4 in, 2 qualifiers) and Final (2 in, with an optional third-place match). You can delete, rename or insert phases between them, as long as the order stays continuous.

Round robin

It is the simplest phase: a single table, no groups. Everything in shared fields applies. With home and away, the generator mirrors home advantage in the second round.

A round-robin phase can also qualify teams for a knockout: just fill in Teams qualifying and create the next phase. This is the format of many 6-to-8-team tournaments where everyone plays each other and the top four go to the semi-finals.

FAQ

Everything is configured and the next phase does not generate. Check that every fixture of the previous phase has a result, that Teams qualifying of the next phase matches the total leaving the previous one and, in explicit mode, that the spots add up.

The table highlights in green a team I thought would not qualify. The highlight follows the calculation above, including points per game across unequal groups. Compare the phase tiebreakers with your rulebook; if one is out of order, reorder it and the table recalculates.

Can I switch from groups to knockout after starting? Not while results are entered. Delete the results or create a new phase.

What happens to a team that loses in the knockout? It leaves the competition. If you want everyone to keep playing, use divisions (Gold, Silver, Bronze) inside a single phase, described in Competition formats.