Group Stage Generator
Draw teams into tournament groups at random or from seeded pots – with the round robin fixtures for every group.
Group sizes differ by at most one team. In a seeded draw, list the teams from strongest to weakest. Your list never leaves your browser.
About this tool
Paste your teams, one per line, and choose how many groups you want. The generator draws them into groups A, B, C and so on, with sizes that differ by at most one team. Pick a seeded draw to use pots like a real tournament: list the teams from strongest to weakest and every group gets one team from each pot. Tick fixtures to get a round-by-round match schedule inside each group.
Frequently asked questions
The teams are ranked and split into pots, one pot per position in the group. With 4 groups, pot 1 is the 4 best teams, pot 2 the next 4 and so on. Each group draws one team from every pot, so the strongest teams cannot meet in the group stage. The 2026 FIFA World Cup drew 48 teams into 12 groups of four from four pots of 12.
Each group is a round robin, so a group of k teams plays k × (k − 1) ÷ 2 matches: 6 in a group of four, 10 in a group of five. Eight groups of four play 8 × 6 = 48 group matches; twelve groups of four play 72.
The generator makes the group sizes as equal as possible, so they differ by at most one team: 14 teams in 3 groups gives groups of 5, 5 and 4. In a group with an odd number of teams one team sits out each round.
Groups of four are the most common: three matches each and a manageable schedule. If the top two of each group go through, choose a number of groups that gives a neat knockout round – 2 groups for semi-finals, 4 for quarter-finals, 8 for a round of 16.
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