# Matchday content desk for football social accounts

> Plan every fixture's preview, team news, kickoff and full time posts on one week board, then schedule each one to Buffer at the right hour.

- Workflow type: app
- Services: API-Sports, Buffer
- Categories: Marketing
- Published: 2026-08-14

## What it does

- Shows the week's fixtures for the clubs and competitions you cover as a board of match cards, each with four post slots for the preview, team news, kickoff and full time moments, so you can see at a glance which matches still have gaps
- Opens each match into the raw material you write from: the head to head record, both teams' season form, the leading scorers to watch, the confirmed starting eleven once it lands, and the final score with goalscorers after the whistle
- Lets you write the copy in the slot and queue it to Buffer at an offset from kickoff, for example 24 hours before for the preview and 1 hour before for team news, so posts land at the right moment no matter what time the match starts
- Warns you when the channel you picked has already hit its posting limit for that day, and shows the scheduled send time on every filled slot so the team never double posts

## What you'll need

- An API-Sports account for the football data. The free plan works and covers a week of fixtures comfortably
- A Buffer account with the social channels you post from already connected
- The leagues and teams you cover, so the board only shows the matches your accounts care about

## Prompt

Build me a matchday content desk for the football accounts I post from. The main surface is a week board of the fixtures we cover, and every fixture card carries four post slots (preview, team news, kickoff, full time) so I can see at a glance which matches still have gaps. The board is where the social team works all week, so drafts, slot status and timing all live in the app.

Setup: let me pick the leagues and teams we cover, set my timezone, and set a default send offset per slot (for example 24 hours before kickoff for the preview, 1 hour before for team news, at kickoff for the kickoff post, and 20 minutes after the final whistle for full time). Store all of this in the app so the board reloads the same way every time.

Load the board with API-Sports List Fixtures (Live, By Date, League, or Team), filtered by the chosen leagues and teams for the current week. Always pass the timezone parameter so kickoff times and every offset computed from them are in my local time, not UTC. Group the cards by day, and show competition, both team names and badges, kickoff time and fixture status on each card.

Each of the four slots shows one of these states: empty, draft saved, or scheduled with the exact send time displayed. Two slots are gated by reality. The team news slot stays in a waiting for lineups state until Get Fixture Lineups actually returns data for that fixture, which is usually about an hour before kickoff, and it unlocks on its own once lineups publish. The full time slot stays locked until the fixture status is finished. Make the gating visible rather than hiding the slots, so the board still reads as four slots per match.

Opening a card gives me the raw material to write from, in a detail panel next to the slots: the head to head record from Get Head-to-Head Fixtures, season form for both teams from Get Team Statistics, the danger men from Get Top Scorers for that competition and season, the confirmed eleven and formation from Get Fixture Lineups once it publishes, and the final score plus goalscorers and cards from Get Fixture Events after the whistle.

Respect the API-Sports quota. The free plan is 100 requests a day, so load the week's fixture list once and cache it, and fetch the per fixture detail only when a card is actually opened. Cache that detail per fixture so reopening a card costs nothing, and give me a manual refresh on the card for the parts that change (lineups and events) rather than polling in the background.

I write the copy directly in the slot. In the composer let me choose the destination channel, listed with Buffer List Channels, and adjust the offset from kickoff for that specific post, with the resulting absolute send time shown as I change it. Queue it with Buffer Create Post in custom scheduled mode at that computed time. Before scheduling, check Get Daily Posting Limits for the chosen channel on the target date and warn me when that channel is already full for the day, while still letting me pick a different channel or shift the time.

Persist the draft text, the slot status, the chosen channel, the per slot offsets, and the post id and scheduled time that Buffer returns. A filled slot shows its scheduled send time on the card so nothing gets double posted, and so anyone on the team can see the match is handled. Let me reopen a scheduled slot to read what was queued and to edit the draft, and make re queueing a deliberate action rather than something that happens automatically on edit.

Keep the board dense enough to scan a full week of fixtures at once, with the gaps obvious. No em dashes anywhere in post copy or app copy.

## How to customize

- Change which competitions and clubs appear on the board, and how far ahead the week view looks
- Set your own send offset for each slot, such as two days before for the preview or 20 minutes after full time for reaction
- Rename the four slots or add your own, for example a player spotlight or a ticket reminder, each with its own timing

## FAQ

### Which leagues and competitions can I cover?

Any competition covered by API-Sports, which includes the major domestic leagues, cups and international tournaments. You choose the leagues and teams when you set the app up, and the board only shows those fixtures.

### What happens with the team news post if the lineup is not out yet?

Confirmed lineups usually publish about an hour before kickoff. Until then the team news slot shows as waiting for lineups, and it opens up on its own once the starting eleven is available so you know the moment you can write.

### Does the app post anything on its own?

No. Nothing is sent without you writing it and queueing it. The app hands your copy to Buffer with a specific send time, and Buffer publishes it at that moment, exactly as if you had scheduled it there yourself.

### How does it stop us posting the same thing twice?

Once a slot is scheduled it is marked as filled and shows the exact send time on the card, so anyone else on the team can see it is already handled. The board is the single place the week is tracked.

### Will this work on the free API-Sports plan?

Yes. The free plan allows 100 requests a day, so the app loads the week's fixtures once and only fetches the deeper match detail when you actually open a card, which keeps a normal week well inside the allowance.

Use this prompt in General Input: https://www.generalinput.com/prompts/matchday-content-desk-for-football-social-accounts