Football Stats, Fixtures & Standings

A comprehensive football analytics platform built for WordPress. Live scores, referee/player/team statistics, fixture broadcasting guides, and editorial match analysis — all optimized for SEO and mobile.

Main purpose

The platform aggregates football data from professional APIs, processes it through intelligent caching and analytics pipelines, and delivers it through beautifully optimized web pages. It serves both casual fans (live scores, fixtures, standings) and power users (detailed referee statistics, team analytics, saved custom reports).

Why use this platform?

Deliver real-time live scores with intelligent polling (30s intervals, auto-refresh on match events)
Provide deep referee analytics: cards per match, foul statistics, VAR interventions, penalty decisions — a niche rarely covered by competitors
Offer team and player statistics with custom report generation and saved analysis pages
Guide fans to the right broadcaster: per-match channel information for Turkish TV networks (beIN Sports, TRT, S Sport, Exxen, Tivibu)
Cover the 2026 FIFA World Cup end-to-end: fixtures, 12 group tables, knockout bracket, venue mapping for 16 stadiums
Achieve enterprise SEO: structured data (JSON-LD for 11 schema types), three sitemaps, canonical URLs, Open Graph, Twitter Cards
Scale efficiently with three-tier caching (browser → Cloudflare edge → Redis application cache)
Reduce content creation workload with AI-assisted SEO content generation

Core features

Live Scores & Fixtures

Real-time match tracking with intelligent DOM updates. The home page polls every 30 seconds for the "big four" Turkish teams (Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş, Trabzonspor). The fixture page has a dedicated live score endpoint. All pages are cached at the edge with AJAX overlay for live data — users never see stale scores.

Referee Analytics

Deep statistical analysis of match officials: cards per match, yellow/red card distributions, foul statistics, penalty decisions, VAR interventions. Custom report builder with saved pages, category navigation, and load-more functionality (10 rows at a time). Only referees with existing profile pages get clickable links.

Team & Player Statistics

Comprehensive team performance metrics: goals scored/conceded, clean sheets, win/loss ratios, home/away performance splits. Player statistics: goals, assists, cards, minutes played. Custom analysis pages with filters (competition, season, team, date range, metric type) and saved reports with SEO-optimized URLs.

Match Broadcasting Guide

Per-match channel information for Turkish broadcasters (beIN Sports, TRT, S Sport, Exxen, Tivibu). Team-based channel lookup: "Which channel shows my team's match?" Override system for manual channel assignments per fixture. Competition-level defaults for automatic assignment.

2026 FIFA World Cup Coverage

Complete tournament coverage: landing page with today's matches and Turkey's next match, fixtures grouped by date, group tables (12 groups × 4 teams), knockout bracket, individual match pages for Turkey matches. Official FIFA Final Draw group assignments (December 5, 2025). Venue mapping for all 16 stadiums across USA, Canada, and Mexico.

AI-Generated Content

Three AI providers (OpenAI, Claude, local models) for automated content generation: SEO titles, meta descriptions, introductory paragraphs, FAQ items, and editorial match analysis. Admin panel with content review workflow — AI generates drafts, admins review and publish.

SEO & Structured Data

JSON-LD schema for 11 types: SportsEvent, SportsTeam, SportsLeague, Person (referees), Organization, WebSite, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, Dataset, ItemList, FAQPage. Three sitemaps (index, pages, categories). Automatic canonical URLs, Open Graph tags, Twitter Cards. Robots meta directives (index/noindex) per page.

Three-Tier Caching

Browser cache (Cache-Control headers), edge cache (Cloudflare CDN with s-maxage and stale-while-revalidate), application cache (Redis-backed). Intelligent cache invalidation on content changes: score updates trigger purge, stat page publication triggers purge, admin manual purge available. Configurable TTLs per page type (5 minutes for live pages, 24 hours for static content).

How the platform works

Data Ingestion: API-Football provides raw fixture, team, player, and event data. Scheduled commands sync data at configurable intervals (every 5 minutes during match days, hourly otherwise).
Processing Pipeline: Raw data is normalized, enriched with venue/country mappings, channel assignments, and statistical calculations. Match events are processed for timeline display.
Analytics Engine: Custom SQL queries calculate referee statistics, team performance metrics, player rankings. Results are cached and served through optimized endpoints. N+1 query prevention with eager loading throughout.
Content Generation: AI providers generate SEO-optimized content for stat pages. Admin reviews and publishes content through a workflow.
Delivery: Pages are rendered with three-tier caching. Live scores update via AJAX polling without full page reload.
Cache Management: Intelligent invalidation on content changes. Cloudflare API purge on significant updates. Configurable TTLs per page type.

Admin pages and settings

Dashboard

Overview of system health: total stat pages, published pages count, cache status indicators, recent activity feed, API sync status, system metrics (database size, cache hit rate). Quick access to common actions.

Stat Page Management

Create, edit, publish, and manage statistical analysis pages. Categories: referee (hakem), team (takim), player (futbolcu), fixture (fikstur), standings (puandurumu), World Cup Turkey (world-cup-2026-tr). Filters: competition, season, team, date range, metric type. SEO fields: custom title, meta description, canonical URL, robots directive. Content: HTML description, FAQ items, related pages suggestions.

Category Management

Manage stat page categories: display names, URL slugs, descriptions, SEO settings, navigation order. Category pages show 15 items initially with "Load More" button that loads +15 items via AJAX.

Channel Overrides

Per-match broadcasting channel assignments. Competition-level defaults configured in config file. Manual override system for special cases (cup finals, rescheduled matches).

AI Content Generation

Generate SEO content using AI providers. Supports three backends: OpenAI (GPT-4), Claude (Anthropic), and local models. Content types: SEO titles, meta descriptions, introductory paragraphs, FAQ items, editorial analysis. Content review workflow: AI generates drafts, admins review/edit before publishing.

System Monitoring

API sync status tracking, cache health indicators, database metrics, recent error log, audit log viewer. Manual cache purge button, data re-sync trigger, system health checks.

Technical architecture

Data Model

fixtures — Match data (home/away teams, date, status, goals, competition, external_id)
teams — Team information (name, logo_path, logo_source_url, country)
players — Player data (name, position, team_id, nationality)
match_events — Goals, cards, substitutions with minute tracking and player/team references
stat_pages — Custom analysis pages with filters_json, content fields, SEO metadata
fixture_broadcasts — Channel assignments per match (JSON array with name and type)
raw_api_payloads — Cached API responses for enrichment (endpoint, source_id, payload JSON)
audit_logs — Admin action tracking (user_id, action, resource, before/after values)

Caching Layers

Browser Cache: Cache-Control headers with configurable max-age per page type
Edge Cache: Cloudflare CDN with s-maxage and stale-while-revalidate directives
Application Cache: Redis-backed cache for query results and computed data
View Cache: Compiled templates (cleared on deployment)

Performance Optimizations

N+1 query prevention with Eloquent eager loading across all list views
Bulk API payload processing: single query to fetch all payloads for a fixture batch
JSON-LD schema generation optimized for Google rich results (SportsEvent, FAQPage)
Image lazy loading with WebP format support for team logos
Database indexes on frequently queried columns (external_id, competition, status)

Security Features

CSRF protection on all form submissions
XSS prevention through automatic output escaping
SQL injection prevention via parameterized queries
Rate limiting on API endpoints
Content Security Policy headers (script-src, style-src, img-src directives)
HSTS enforcement for HTTPS-only connections

SEO features

Structured Data (JSON-LD)

The platform generates JSON-LD structured data for 11 schema types, optimized for Google rich results:

SportsEvent: Match details with home/away teams, venue, start date, event status, organizer
SportsTeam: Team information with name, logo URL, sport type
SportsLeague: Competition details with name, sport type, official URL
Person: Referee profiles with name, URL, description, statistics
Organization: Site identity with name, URL, logo
WebSite: Site metadata with name, URL, language, publisher reference
WebPage: Page-specific metadata with URL, name, description, type
BreadcrumbList: Navigation hierarchy with position, name, URL per item
Dataset: Data collection metadata with name, description, license, creator
ItemList: Fixture/list collections with position, name, URL per item
FAQPage: Frequently asked questions with question name and accepted answer

Sitemaps

/sitemap.xml — Index sitemap referencing all sub-sitemaps
/sitemap-sayfalar.xml — Pages sitemap (stat pages, legal pages, World Cup pages, team channel pages)
/sitemap-kategoriler.xml — Categories sitemap (referee, team, player category index pages)

All sitemaps include lastmod, changefreq, and priority values. Turkey World Cup match pages are included individually with high priority (0.8).

Scheduled tasks

The platform runs scheduled tasks via the command scheduler:

Fixture Sync: Every 5 minutes during match days, hourly otherwise
Live Score Refresh: Every 1 minute during active matches
Standings Update: Every 15 minutes during match days
Team Logo Sync: Daily at 03:00
Player Data Sync: Every 6 hours
Channel Guide Update: Daily at 06:00
Stat Page Cache Warm: Every 30 minutes for published pages
Cloudflare Purge Queue: Every 5 minutes for pending purges
API Health Check: Every 10 minutes
World Cup Sync: Every 15 minutes during tournament
SEO Sitemap Regeneration: Daily at 02:00

Deployment

Docker Setup

Single container deployment with PHP-FPM
Nginx reverse proxy on host machine (port 80/443 → container port 80)
Redis for application caching and session storage
MySQL 8.0 for relational data storage
Custom entrypoint script for health checks and graceful shutdown

Cloudflare Integration

Edge caching with configurable TTLs per page type (5 min for live, 24h for static)
Automatic cache purge via Cloudflare API on content changes
Custom error pages (404, 500, 503) served from edge
Security headers enforcement (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options)
DDoS protection through Cloudflare's network

Monitoring

Health check endpoint returning JSON with status, database connection, cache connection
API sync status tracking (last successful sync, failure count, error messages)
Error logging with daily rotation
Performance metrics collection (response times, cache hit rates, query counts)
Audit trail for all admin actions with before/after values
Daily system health report emailed to admin address

Recommended usage flow

Deploy Docker container with environment configuration (database credentials, API keys, Cloudflare tokens).
Configure API-Football credentials and set sync schedule (5 min during match days recommended).
Set up Cloudflare integration for edge caching (zone ID, API token in .env).
Configure broadcasting channel defaults for each competition.
Create initial stat pages and categories through admin panel (referee, team, player analyses).
Enable AI content generation for SEO (configure API keys, set content types).
Monitor system health through admin dashboard (API sync status, cache hit rate, error logs).
Adjust caching TTLs based on traffic patterns.

Why this platform is valuable

Complete Solution: Everything from live scores to deep analytics in one platform — no need to integrate multiple services.
Production-Ready: Deployed at sustur.org and serving real traffic with proven stability and performance.
SEO-Optimized: Rich structured data for 11 schema types, three sitemaps, and meta tags designed for search visibility.
Scalable: Three-tier caching architecture handles high traffic loads during match days without degradation.
Customizable: Admin panel for content management, channel overrides, AI content generation, and system configuration.
AI-Enhanced: Automated SEO content generation reduces manual workload — AI drafts, admins review and publish.
Turkish Market Focus: Localized content, Turkish broadcaster integration, Turkish language throughout the interface.
World Cup Ready: Full 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage with official group assignments, venue mapping, and live scoring.
Niche Differentiation: Referee analytics is a rarely covered area — gives the platform unique value proposition.

Package note: This readme describes the full feature set of the sustur.org platform as deployed and in production. All features listed are functional and tested. The platform is sold as a complete package including source code, database schema, Docker configuration, and deployment documentation.

sustur.org — Professional Football Analytics & Live Scores Platform