Coaches
What does the include do?
The coaches include allows you to retrieve information about the head coaches (managers) of both teams in a fixture. This gives you each coach's biographical and profile data alongside the fixture, so you can display who was in charge of each side for a given match.
Why use coaches?
The coaches include is useful for:
Match centre displays: Show which manager was in charge of each team for a specific fixture
Manager profiles: Access biographical data (nationality, date of birth, image) without a separate request
Tactical build-up context: Combine with lineups and formations to attribute team selection to a specific coach
Historical tracking: See coaching changes across a season by comparing the
coachesinclude across multiple fixtures for the same team
Requesting coaches
To retrieve coach information for a fixture, use the following include:
https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/fixtures/{fixture_id}
?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&include=coachesExample: Get coaches for Sparta Rotterdam vs Feyenoord (fixture ID: 19714695)
https://api.sportmonks.com/v3/football/fixtures/19714695
?api_token=YOUR_TOKEN&include=coachesResponse structure
When you include coaches in your request, you'll receive an array of two coach objects, one for each team in the fixture:
Field descriptions
Main coach fields
id
integer
Unique identifier for this coach
player_id
integer
Links to a player record if the coach previously played professionally, null otherwise
sport_id
integer
ID of the sport (1 = football/soccer)
country_id
integer
ID of the coach's country
nationality_id
integer
ID of the coach's nationality
common_name
string
Shortened display name (e.g. "G. van Bronckhorst")
firstname
string
Coach's first name
lastname
string
Coach's last name
name
string
Full name
display_name
string
Preferred display name
image_path
string
URL to the coach's headshot
height
integer
Height in centimetres, may be null
weight
integer
Weight in kilograms, may be null
date_of_birth
string
Date of birth (YYYY-MM-DD)
gender
string
"male" or "female"
Meta object fields
Unlike the participants include, coach objects do not carry a location field. The meta object only links the coach to the fixture and the team:
meta.fixture_id
integer
The fixture this coach assignment belongs to
meta.coach_id
integer
Repeats the coach's id
meta.participant_id
integer
The linking field. Matches the id of one of the two teams in participants
Identifying home vs away coach
Coach objects have no home/away flag of their own. To determine which coach belongs to the home team and which to the away team, combine coaches with participants and match on meta.participant_id:
Nested includes
Coach records support additional nested includes, in line with the standalone Coach entity:
coaches.country- Full country record instead of justcountry_idcoaches.player- The coach's own playing career record, whenplayer_idis not nullcoaches.trophies- Honours won across the coach's career
Code examples
JavaScript example
Best practices
Always pair with
participantsfor home/away context. Coach objects have no location field of their own,meta.participant_idis the only link back to a specific team.Check
player_idbefore assuming a playing career. Many coaches never played professionally at a tracked level,player_idis null in that case.Handle null
height/weightgracefully. These fields are frequently unavailable for coaches, unlike for active players.Cache coach data per season. Coaching changes happen mid-season, but not per match, a daily cache is usually sufficient.
Related includes
Participants - Required to resolve home/away for each coach
Lineups - Cross-reference team selection with the coach who picked it
Referees - Another fixture-level personnel include with a similar shape
Summary
The coaches include returns each team's head coach for a fixture, linked back to the correct team via meta.participant_id, not a team_id or meta.location field. To display home vs away coach, combine this include with participants and match on that field. Nested includes (coaches.country, coaches.player, coaches.trophies) are available for deeper coach profile data.
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