Como 26/27 · platform walkthrough · for the Builder & the Advisor · from the Organiser, 7 July 2026

Como leaves
the spreadsheet.

Ten seasons of auctions in Excel. This August, the same night — the room, the voices, the arguments — runs on our own platform. Nothing about how we bid changes. What changes is that nobody types formulas at midnight, nobody asks "how much do I have left?", and the board does the maths, the drama and the record-keeping. Every screen below is shown exactly as the TV will render it, 16:9. Build starts when we say go.

$3,000per manager
8managers
15players · 2G 5D 5M 3F
Aug 2the auction
How the night runs

Five acts, two phases

Weeks before

Pool freezes

FPL's player list is ingested and tiered. The war room opens — everyone browses the pool and plots.

Draft morning

The sweep

Automated news briefs for the top tiers; Claude seals a value for every player. Nobody sees them.

Phase one

The lots

Players come up in price order, shuffled within tier. Voice bids; the neutral auctioneer records the hammer. No bid? The player waits for phase two.

Phase two

Nominations

Once every player has been offered, managers take turns — a rotation, skipping full squads — nominating anyone unsold, until all squads hit 15.

After

The record

Recap and awards, squad checklists for the FPL Draft site, and the whole night archived forever.

The season itself runs on the official FPL Draft site, untouched — our platform is auction night, rebids (v2), and the permanent Como record.

The rules engine

Every rule enforced at the moment of entry

Exclusive ownership

One manager per player — a database constraint, not an honour system.

Live max bid

Max bid = remaining budget − $5 reserve per other open slot. Computed live for all eight, shown on every screen, and the console refuses any sale above it.

Four tiers

Opening bids $50 / $25 / $10 / $5 by tier. Bands, opens and increments all editable in league settings.

War room, no logins

One open page for TV, laptops and phones — budgets, max bids, squads, pool, log. All public information; strategy stays in your head.

Trades in v1

Players and/or cash, entered by the auctioneer during a pause. Salaries travel with players; both budgets, quotas and max bids recalculate instantly.

Corrections with a paper trail

Undo last sale on the console; edit or void any sale from the ledger. Every change is logged where the room can see it.

Sealed Claude values

Generated draft morning, hidden from everyone — then auto-revealed beside the price the moment each hammer falls.

Neutral auctioneer

A non-player drives the console and what the TV shows. Every screen in the room follows the shared state within a second or two — no cables, no casting.

Screen one · the TV

On the block

The player is the star: real photo, club colours (the board re-dresses for every lot), last season's numbers with rankings, the morning news brief, last year's Como owner — and the sealed value building suspense. All eight budgets live along the bottom.

On the block · Lot 14 ● MANCHESTER CITY
FWD · №9TIER 1 · OPENS $50FPL £14.7OWNED 62.5%
Manchester City crest
Manchester City
The Citizens · Etihad Stadium
25Age
NORNorway
194cm
Haaland
Erling Braut Haaland · №9
'25 Points239
#1 of all players#1 forward · #2 B.Fernandes 235
27goals
8assists
43bonus pts
89% 34/38games started
87mins / game
6.8pts / game
'25 Como owner · M2 — $8503rd highest sale of '25
Morning brief · swept 7:14am
  • Fit, no flags — recovered from the layoff that ended his February.
  • Guardiola out, Maresca in; Bernardo gone. Service is the open question.
  • "Not fully convinced" by the project — Madrid whispers for '27.
🔒 Claude value — sealed until the hammer

Recently sold

Isak → M2$800
Salah → M1$1,000
Palmer → M3$525

Pool · role × tier

GK
18
DEF
92
MID
130
FWD
41
⚠ Only 2 Tier-1 forwards remain — one is on the block.
The room · who can bid on this forward
M1$1,210
Max bid$1,190
G 1/2D 4/5M 4/5F 1/3
M2$983
Max bid$978
G 2/2D 5/5M 4/5F 2/3
M3$736
Max bid$726
G 1/2D 5/5M 4/5F 2/3
M4$472
Max bid$452
G 1/2D 4/5M 3/5F 2/3
M5$333
Max bid$298
G 1/2D 3/5M 2/5F 1/3
M6$60
Can't bidF full
G 2/2D 5/5M 3/5F 3/3
M7$12
Complete15/15
G 2/2D 5/5M 5/5F 3/3
M8$120
Max bid$105
G 2/2D 4/5M 3/5F 2/3
The moment

Every hammer opens the envelope

The instant the auctioneer records a sale, the TV cuts to this — price paid against Claude's sealed value, and the verdict. The room does the rest.

SOLD · Lot 14
PHASE ONE · 14 OF ~105
HAALAND → MANAGER 1
Price paid$780
Claude's sealed value$540
OVERPAY · +$240 — 44% OVERThe group chat will never delete this.
Screen two · the argument settler

All eight squads, one screen

Every squad, players tier-marked (gold Tier 1 down to grey Tier 4), prices colour-graded by value relative to the night's market so far. Claude's verdict sits at squad level: total value, one signed number. The crown is the night's best-value squad.

The Room · Squads
DRAFT COMPLETE · 120/120 SOLD · VALUES REVEALED
Manager 1 👑$2,975 · left $25
Claude value$3,215+240
M.SalahT11,000
HaalandT1780
GvardiolT2110
RayaT3120
RogersT360
+ 10 more · GK 2 · DEF 5 · MID 5 · FWD 3 ✓
Manager 2$2,980 · left $20
Claude value$2,875−105
IsakT1800
SalibaT2140
GordonT2100
SelsT345
MuñozT470
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 3$2,990 · left $10
Claude value$2,970−20
PalmerT1525
CunhaT2180
RomeroT395
EdersonT360
TarkowskiT425
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 4$2,985 · left $15
Claude value$2,990+5
SakaT1300
MatetaT2150
MuñozT370
PetrovićT340
AndersonT415
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 5$2,985 · left $15
Claude value$3,110+125
WirtzT1220
WoodT2110
NdiayeT390
KerkezT375
DúbravkaT410
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 6$2,985 · left $15
Claude value$3,170+185
SemenyoT2260
B.GuimarãesT2180
GabrielT390
VicarioT355
EstèveT410
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 7$2,985 · left $15
Claude value$2,860−125
Gibbs-WhiteT2150
Strand LarsenT2120
MilenkovićT385
PopeT350
ReinildoT45
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Manager 8$2,990 · left $10
Claude value$3,080+90
SzoboszlaiT2160
Van de VenT2105
EvanilsonT395
R.SánchezT345
AldereteT45
+ 10 more · squad complete ✓
Screen three · the record

The ledger

Every player: FPL data, tier, hammer price (value-graded), owner, Claude value. Search by player, club or manager; filter by position, owner, or the NO BID pile; every column sorts. Pool browser before the draft, permanent record after it.

The Ledger
'26 AUCTION · SORTED BY PAID ▼FILTERS: ALL · M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 · NO BID
PlayerPosTierFPL £'25 ptsOwnerPaid ▼ClaudeΔ
M.SalahMIDT1£14.5221M1$1,000$1,150+150
IsakFWDT1£10.6165M2$800$795−5
HaalandFWDT1£14.7239M1$780$540−240
B.FernandesMIDT1£10.4235M8$705$720+15
SemenyoMIDT2£7.8202M6$660$780+120
SakaMIDT1£10.2163M4$640$625−15
WatkinsFWDT2£8.9167M5$610$450−160
PalmerMIDT1£10.3158M3$525$760+235
Gibbs-WhiteMIDT2£7.5188M7$445$360−85
CunhaFWDT2£8.1144M3$430$445+15
GordonMIDT2£7.9139M2$400$330−70
B.GuimarãesMIDT2£7.2151M6$385$470+85
Calvert-LewinFWDT3£5.471NO BID—🔒 sealed—
133 players shown · 120 sold · 10 no bid · 3 on the board
Screen four · the auctioneer's hands

The console

The neutral auctioneer's screen — the only one that writes. Winners are only selectable if they can legally bid; prices validate against max bids and tier opens; illegal sales can't be entered at all. Trades open a two-sided form with live before→after budgets. The TV bar chooses what the room sees; the reveal fires automatically on every sale.

Console · Auctioneer
LOT 14 OF ~105● BOARD LIVE · 8 DEVICES⏸ PAUSE

Current lot — record the sale

HaalandT1FWD · MCI · opens $50
M1max $1,190
M2max $978
M3max $726
M4max $452
M5max $298
M6FWD full
M715/15
M8max $105
$780
✓ Legal — Manager 1 pays $780, leaving $430. Recording flashes the reveal on the TV.
🔨 Record sale No bid — to phase two ⇄ Enter a trade ↩ Undo last

Up next · shuffled within tier

T1WatkinsFWD · AVL
T1B.FernandesMID · MUN
T1SakaMID · ARS
T1Van DijkDEF · LIV
T2RayaGK · ARS

Night progress

Sold13 · $6,180
No bid → phase two3
Tier 1 remaining9
Squads complete1 of 8
⏹ End phase one → open nominations
TV is showing On the blockRevealSquadsLedgerPaused Reveal fires automatically on record · manual override here
Getting there

Three versions, one deadline

v1 · now → Aug 2
  • Rules engine: tiers, max bid, exclusive ownership, two phases
  • War room (TV / laptop / phone), no logins
  • Console: sales, no-bids, undo/edit + audit, trades, pause
  • Morning sweep + sealed values, auto-reveal
  • Recap, awards, FPL Draft checklists
v2 · in season
  • Rebid rounds: retention lists, cash injections
  • Carry-over balances, borrowing (the 20% tax)
  • Same board, same console, rebid night
v3 · off-season
  • Import a decade of Excel history
  • All-time records, overpay tables
  • The permanent home of the wooden spoon

Stack (for the Builder): Next.js + TypeScript, Postgres, polling — deploys identically to Vercel or self-hosted. Everything above is config, not code: budget, tiers, thresholds, roster all live in league settings. Real names never enter the public repo.

Open items for the three of us

  • Confirm the trade rule: salaries travel with traded players (prevents free-budget loopholes; matches rebid salary retention). Speak up now if Como trades should be pure barter.
  • Find the neutral auctioneer for August 2.
  • Confirm the final 8 and the pool-freeze date (FPL prices settle late July).
  • Hosting for the night — Vercel URL vs self-hosted; either works from the same code.