One head coach writes the plays. Everyone else opens the same playbook and always has the current version. It takes about ten minutes to set up, once.
There is nothing to sign into and nothing to install in the playbook itself. Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive all do the same useful trick: they put an ordinary folder on your computer that quietly stays in step with everybody else's. You save your team into that folder like any other file, and it turns up on their machines on its own.
Everyone uses the website. You and your coaches all work at football.philipeby.com — there is nothing to download and nothing to keep up to date. The only thing that lives in the shared folder is your team file.
Pick whichever service your staff already uses — they all work the same way. If you have a Gmail address you already have Google Drive.
Install Google Drive for desktop from google.com/drive/download and sign in. It adds a Google Drive location to your computer — on Windows usually G:\, on a Mac under Locations in Finder. Make a folder inside it called something like Football 2026.
Same idea. Install the desktop app if it is not already there — OneDrive comes with most Windows machines — and make a folder inside it.
Now right-click that folder and choose Share. Add your assistant coaches' email addresses. Give them Editor if you want them saving changes back, or Viewer if you would rather be the only one who writes.
They accept the invitation and install the same desktop app. The folder then appears on their computers too.
This is the fiddly bit, and it is the one thing worth doing properly. When you save your team, your browser normally drops the file straight into Downloads without asking — which is not where you want it.
Settings → Downloads → turn on Ask where to save each file before downloading.
Settings → General → Downloads → Always ask you where to save files.
Settings → General → File download location → Ask for each download.
Now every save opens a proper dialog and you can point it at your shared folder. Once you have done that once, the dialog normally reopens there next time.
In the playbook, press Team, then Save team to a file. When the dialog opens, choose your shared folder.
That file holds your squad, your formations and every play you have written.
They go to football.philipeby.com, press Team, then Open a team file, and pick the newest one out of the shared folder.
That is the whole routine. Whenever you save, they open the latest file and have your current plays.
Every save is its own dated file, named for your team and the moment you saved it:
Wildcats 2026-08-18 1745.json
Wildcats 2026-08-20 1912.json
Wildcats 2026-08-22 1930.json
So saving never destroys what came before. Sort the folder by name and the newest is at the bottom — the dates lead, so alphabetical order and chronological order are the same thing.
To go back to how things were on Thursday, open Thursday's file. That is the whole of it. Nothing is overwritten, so there is nothing to undo.
Your sync service keeps history too. Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive each hold on to previous versions of a file for around 30 days. Right-click a file and look for Version history or Manage versions. Worth knowing about for the day something else goes wrong.
A busy season makes a lot of files. Nothing needs them once you have moved on, so delete the ones you will not go back to — or make an Old folder inside your shared folder and drag them in, which keeps the list short without throwing anything away.
Opening a team file replaces everything — squad, formations and plays. That is what you want when you are picking up the head coach's playbook, and not what you want when you only need the roster.
So there is a second way in. Under Team → Players, press Add a whole list. You can paste your roster straight in — one player per line, or separated by commas, however it arrived in the team email — or read the players out of somebody's team file without touching your own plays. Anybody already on your team is skipped, and nobody is ever removed.
The playbook keeps its own copy in your browser as you work, so nothing is lost mid-session. But that copy is yours alone. If you change something everyone should have, you have to Save team to a file back into the shared folder — otherwise it never leaves your laptop. This is the most likely way to lose an evening's work.
Dated files mean two coaches saving at once no longer collide — they simply get two differently named files, and neither is lost.
What dated files cannot do is combine the two. If you and your assistant both start from Tuesday's playbook and both add a play, you end up with two saves that each contain one of them, and opening the newer one leaves his work sitting in a file nobody opens. Nothing is destroyed and you can always go back for it, but somebody still has to notice.
Far simpler: the head coach owns the playbook, and everyone else opens it to read.
The sync apps mark a file as still uploading. Shut your laptop too quickly after saving and your coaches get yesterday's plays. Give it a moment and look for the green tick or the filled-in cloud.
Stadium wifi cannot be trusted and you should not need it. Open the playbook at home, press Print Cards, and take paper. Paper does not need a signal, a battery or a login.
The browser's copy goes with it. The file in your shared folder is what survives, which is the real reason to keep one there.
Google Drive for desktop is Windows and Mac only. On an iPad you can still reach the same folder through the Files app once the Drive or Dropbox app is installed, and open and save from there — it just takes a couple more taps. If a coach is iPad-only, the simplest thing is to hand them printed cards.
The browser is refusing to keep its own copy — usually private browsing, or the playbook opened straight from a file. Your work is not at risk as long as you save to a file, but it is worth fixing: use football.philipeby.com in a normal window.
They have not accepted the share invitation, or they have not installed the desktop app. Both are needed.
They saved into their own Downloads folder instead of the shared one. Go back to step 2.