01 · Enter
Competition Home
Understand the current round and continue with the most relevant action.
Building a Fantasy product that could only exist inside Sofascore
Product Designer · 2024 - Present
From development start to live product · 393K teams before World Cup Round 1
iOSAndroidWeb
- My scope
- Product design from development start to live product
- Team
- Product, Research, Engineering and UX Writing
- Constraint
- One system across competitions, iOS, Android and web
- Outcome
- 393K teams before the first World Cup round
As the product designer in a cross-functional team, I worked across the product journey - from early exploration and iteration to shipped experiences across iOS, Android and web.
The experience connected competition discovery, squad management, live scoring and player analysis through data users already associated with Sofascore.
Key decision · Sofascore-nativeUse trusted sports data for scoring and player decisions.
02 - Opportunity
Sofascore already had the audience. Fantasy created a new reason to return.
Fantasy transformed passive match-following into an active cycle of preparation, decisions and live outcomes, increasing engagement, supporting competition partnerships and turning Sofascore's sports data into a product advantage.
Before Fantasy
Follow the match, check the result and leave the experience.
With Fantasy
Prepare, make decisions, follow live points and return for the next round.
03 - Product loop
Fantasy was not one feature. It was a connected sequence of decisions.
Each surface supported one repeating journey across every round.
02 · Manage
My Team
Set the lineup and react while the round is still active.
03 · Decide
Player Modal
Compare form, price and fixtures before committing to a player.
04 · Compete
Competitions
Join leagues through one system designed to scale across competitions.
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Product loopBuild a team. Make a decision. Follow the outcome. Then begin again in the next round.
04 - Competitions
One entry point connected every competition and season.
The Fantasy tab brought active, discoverable and completed competitions into one destination.
Manage what you play and discover what comes next.
Bottom navigation was the main entry point, while promotional banners across competition and player surfaces brought users into Fantasy at relevant moments.
Return to active competitions
Reopen competitions already in progress and understand the current round, deadline and overall progress.
Prioritise what matters
Reorder active competitions so the most relevant leagues remain easiest to access.
Discover relevant leagues
Find promoted, popular and regionally relevant competitions worth joining next.
Revisit previous seasons
Access finished competitions and basic information about teams built in earlier seasons.
Product hierarchy
Competitions supported discovery and return, while Competition Home and My Team remained the core repeat-use experience.
05 - Decisions
Three decisions shaped how Fantasy felt and worked.
01 · Scoring identity
Make Sofascore Rating part of Fantasy scoring.
The problem. Fantasy Premier League already had a familiar bonus-point model. Repeating it would have reduced onboarding friction, but it would not have given the product a distinct reason to exist inside Sofascore.
The decision. We connected Fantasy points with Sofascore Rating, match events and player statistics. The scoring model rewarded performance through a system users already associated with Sofascore.
Product consequence. The game gained its own scoring identity while turning existing sports data into a meaningful product advantage.
02 · Information hierarchy
Put the next important decision at the top.
The problem. As Fantasy grew, Competition Home accumulated more information. Current points, active players, deadlines and team-management actions began competing for the same attention.
The decision. I reorganised the screen around the current round, the most relevant team action and the next deadline without changing the mental model existing players had already learned.
Product consequence. The screen became easier to scan because the hierarchy changed, not because the entire product was redesigned.
Evidence from live usePost-tournament analytics showed significantly higher average Fantasy engagement on deadline days, reinforcing how important time-sensitive decisions were to the product rhythm.
03 · Different player needs
Keep Fantasy approachable without removing strategic depth.
The problem. First-time players and experienced Fantasy managers used the same product with very different expectations. Beginners needed confidence, while experienced players wanted enough information to make deliberate decisions.
The decision. I used clear primary actions, progressive information and deeper player breakdowns so complexity appeared when it became useful rather than all at once.
Product consequence. The goal was not to remove complexity. It was to reveal the right amount at the right moment.
Evidence from live useA record 393K teams were created before the first World Cup round, making first-time usability a real product requirement rather than an edge case.
06 - Guided flow
One screen supported the full rhythm of every Fantasy round.
Its hierarchy shifted with each phase of the round.
Understand the current state of the round.
The overview establishes the active round, current points and players still in action.
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Key takeaway
Competition Home made each phase of the round understandable without forcing users to relearn the product whenever its priorities changed.
07 - Player modal
From player information to decision support.
Each iteration reduced the distance between understanding a player and confidently making a Fantasy decision.
Bring essential data together.
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The progression. The modal evolved from explaining the player to reducing uncertainty before a decision.
08 - Evidence
Users spent the most time around active Fantasy decisions.
My Team and Transfers were the most time-intensive Fantasy surfaces during the World Cup. The strongest engagement concentrated around evaluating the current squad and deciding what to change next.
The Player Modal supported that wider decision journey by bringing relevant player signals closer to the moment a transfer decision was made.
World Cup period · internal product analytics
My Team · average engagement per user · 98.3K total engagement hours
Transfers · average engagement per user · 63.9K total engagement hours
2026/27 season snapshot · 13 October 2026The product continued across competitions, with 219K Premier League teams, 198K Champions League teams, 189K LaLiga teams, 175K Brasileirão teams and 119K MLS teams created.
The product became clearer through iteration, not reinvention.
Each release refined hierarchy and actions without disrupting the model existing players had learned.
09 - Reflection
What building Fantasy changed in how I design products.
DECISION CLARITY
Design around decisions
The biggest lesson was not how to display more information. It was how to reduce uncertainty before an important user decision.
PRODUCT REALITY
Treat constraints as product inputs
Technical realities, business priorities and delivery constraints often led to more resilient solutions than the original ideal state.
CONTINUOUS LEARNING
Improve the product through use
Fantasy became stronger through real feedback, continuous iteration and close collaboration between product, design and engineering.
The best solution is rarely the most ambitious one. It is the one users, product and engineering can successfully build together.