Major football tournaments are perfect for home automation projects. Whether you want live match notifications, automatic TV scenes, flashing lights when your team scores, or a dedicated dashboard for match day, Home Assistant makes it surprisingly easy.

Recently I started experimenting with TeamTracker on GitHub, a fantastic custom integration available through HACS that brings live sports data directly into Home Assistant. After a few minutes of setup, I already had live football match data available as sensors and attributes that could be used for automations, dashboards, notifications, and LED effects.

In this article, I will show:

• What TeamTracker is
• How it works with Home Assistant
• Useful sensors and attributes
• Ideas for football automations
• A practical YAML automation example
• Dashboard ideas for match day

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What is TeamTracker?

TeamTracker on GitHub is a custom Home Assistant integration designed to track sports teams and competitions.

It supports:

• Football
• NHL
• NFL
• MLB
• NBA
• College sports
• International tournaments

For football fans, it works very well with:

• FIFA World Cup
• UEFA Euro
• Premier League
• Champions League
• National teams

The integration creates Home Assistant sensors containing:

• Match status
• Start times
• Current score
• Opponent information
• Match clock
• TV channel information
• Rankings
• Team records

This means Home Assistant can react in real time when matches start, goals are scored, or games finish.

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Why TeamTracker is Perfect for Home Assistant

The best thing about TeamTracker is how naturally it fits into Home Assistant automations.

Once configured, a sensor might look like this:

sensor.norway_soccer

During a live match, the sensor can expose attributes such as:

state: IN
team_name: Norway
opponent_name: Spain
team_score: 2
opponent_score: 1
clock: 67
last_update: Goal

That gives you everything needed for:

• Match notifications
• Smart lighting
• TV automations
• Dashboards
• Voice announcements
• LED effects
• ESPHome displays

And the best part is that it requires very little maintenance once installed.

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Installing TeamTracker

TeamTracker is installed through HACS.

Requirements:

• Home Assistant
• HACS installed

Installation steps:

1. Open HACS
2. Search for “TeamTracker”
3. Install the integration
4. Restart Home Assistant
5. Add the integration through Settings → Devices & Services

After setup, select the sport and team you want to track.

For example:

• Norway national team
• England national team
• Arsenal
• Real Madrid

Once configured, Home Assistant automatically creates the required sensors.

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Creating a Match Day Dashboard

One of the first things I built was a dedicated football dashboard.

Using Mushroom cards and conditional cards, you can display:

• Live score
• Match clock
• Next match countdown
• Competition
• Opponent
• Current status
• Team logo

A simple setup can quickly become a full “match center” inside Home Assistant.

I also added:

• A large live score card
• WLED controls
• Match day scenes
• Buttons for TV and audio systems

This works especially well on:

• Wall tablets
• Fully Kiosk Browser
• Kitchen displays
• Android TV dashboards

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Smart Match Automations

This is where TeamTracker becomes really fun.

Because the integration exposes live match data as Home Assistant entities, you can trigger automations whenever something changes.

Some ideas include:

• Turn on the TV when the match starts
• Dim lights automatically
• Flash LED strips when your team scores
• Send notifications before kickoff
• Announce goals using text-to-speech
• Display the score on ESPHome devices
• Pause robot vacuum cleaning during matches

You can even create a full “stadium mode” scene.

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Example Automation: Goal Celebration Lights

The following automation changes the lights whenever your team scores.

This example assumes:

• You use WLED
• Your TeamTracker sensor is called: sensor.norway_soccer

Automation example:

alias: Norway Goal Celebration
description: Flash WLED lights when Norway scores
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: sensor.norway_soccer
    attribute: team_score

condition:
  - condition: state
    entity_id: sensor.norway_soccer
    state: "IN"

action:
  - service: light.turn_on
    target:
      entity_id: light.wled_livingroom
    data:
      effect: Rainbow
      brightness: 255

  - service: tts.google_translate_say
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.living_room_speaker
    data:
      message: "Goal for Norway!"

  - service: notify.mobile_app_phone
    data:
      title: "Football Update"
      message: >
        Norway scored against
        {{ state_attr('sensor.norway_soccer', 'opponent_name') }}

mode: single

This creates a surprisingly immersive experience during live matches.

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Match Start Automation

Another useful automation is enabling “match mode” automatically before kickoff.

Example ideas:

• Turn on the TV
• Set lighting scenes
• Close blinds
• Adjust room temperature
• Pause EV charging
• Disable noisy automations

A trigger can simply monitor when the sensor changes from:

• PRE
  to
• IN

This means the match has started.

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Using ESPHome Displays

If you already use ESPHome, TeamTracker becomes even more interesting.

You can create:

• Live scoreboards
• OLED match displays
• LED matrix score signs
• ePaper dashboards
• Goal indicators

An inexpensive ESP32 with a small display can become a dedicated football scoreboard.

This is perfect for:

• Home offices
• Kitchens
• Workshops
• Game rooms

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Notifications Before Kickoff

A simple but extremely useful automation is sending notifications before a match starts.

Examples:

• 1 hour before kickoff
• 15 minutes before kickoff
• When lineups are available

Example notification:

“Norway vs Spain starts in 15 minutes.”

This makes Home Assistant act almost like a personal sports assistant.

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Combining TeamTracker with WLED

The combination of TeamTracker and WLED is probably my favorite part of this project.

Ideas include:

• National flag colors during matches
• Flash effects for goals
• Different colors for home and away games
• Match status indicators
• Animated victory celebrations

Because WLED integrates so well with Home Assistant, everything feels seamless.

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Final Thoughts

TeamTracker is one of those integrations that immediately inspires new automation ideas.

It is easy to install, lightweight, and integrates perfectly with Home Assistant. Within minutes, you can transform your smart home into a live football companion with:

• Match dashboards
• Smart lighting
• Goal celebrations
• Notifications
• Voice announcements
• ESPHome scoreboards

For football fans and smart home enthusiasts, it is a fantastic combination.

If you already use Home Assistant, this is definitely worth trying before the next major tournament.