How to make teams nobody complains about
The problem with two captains picking is not fairness. It is that somebody is picked last, in public, every time.
Updated September 2026 · 5 min readWhy captains picking is the worst option
It produces reasonably even teams and it costs somebody a small humiliation every single time. In a school, a work away-day or a mixed-ability kickabout, that cost is much larger than the benefit.
It also takes longer than any other method, because captains negotiate, and it makes the strongest players responsible for the losing team when it goes badly.
Random, and say so in advance
Paste the names into a generator and take what comes out. Nobody chose, so nobody is to blame, and the split is even in size.
Announce that it will be random before anyone arrives. A random split announced afterwards looks like a decision that went wrong.
Snake order, when ability really matters
Rank the players roughly, then assign in a snake: 1 to team A, 2 and 3 to B, 4 and 5 to A, and so on. It balances strength far better than alternating, and it does it without a public draft.
Do the ranking quietly, on paper, with one or two people. The point is to get an even game, not to publish a league table.
Count off, or use what people are wearing
Number everyone round the circle, ones against twos. It takes ten seconds and needs nothing.
Splitting by what people happen to be wearing works the same way and has the advantage of being visibly arbitrary. Both are better than captains for the same reason: no human made a judgement about anyone.
Rebalance between games, not during
If the first game is lopsided, swap two players before the second, not in the middle of the first. Mid-game swaps read as a judgement on the person moved.
The neutral version: the two players who swap are chosen at random from each team. Nobody is being demoted, the teams are just being shuffled.
When the numbers do not divide
Nine people and two teams gives five and four, and the smaller team should get the marginally stronger players. Do not try to fix it with a rolling substitute unless everyone has agreed to it, because the person sitting out changes the game more than the extra player does.
For odd numbers in a game with no substitutes, three smaller teams and a rotation beats two uneven ones.