HOW TO RUN A LAST MAN STANDING POOL
Everything you need to set up and run a Last Man Standing pool for the 2026-27 Premier League season — from picking house rules to crowning a champion in May.
WHY RUN A LAST MAN STANDING POOL?
Last Man Standing is the simplest season-long game in football: every gameweek, each player picks one Premier League team to win. Win and you survive. Lose — or draw, in the classic rules — and you're out. Each club can only be used once, and the last player standing takes the pot. One rule sheet, 38 gameweeks of drama.
It's also the game most likely to already exist in your office — run off a spreadsheet by someone who spends every Friday night chasing picks by text and every Monday morning typing in results. Being the commissioner on Golazo means keeping the fun part (the eliminations, the banter, the pot) and deleting the admin: deadlines enforce themselves, results score themselves, and reminders send themselves.
If you've run a World Cup pool or an NFL survivor pool, LMS is the same energy stretched across a whole season — slow-burn tension from August to May, with a mid-table away fixture in February deciding who takes the money. Setup takes less than five minutes.
Step 1: Choose Your House Rules
Every LMS group argues about the same four rules. Golazo makes each one a pool option you set at creation, so the rules are on the record before a ball is kicked — no mid-season disputes.
Draws: Eliminate or Survive?
Default: draws eliminate. The classic rule — your team must WIN. Roughly a quarter of Premier League matches end level, so this is what makes LMS brutal and keeps pools from dragging past Christmas.
Option: draws survive. A friendlier game where only a loss knocks you out. Expect the pool to run much longer — better for smaller groups that want everyone involved deep into spring.
Team Slate: Reset or No Reset?
Default: reset at exhaustion. With 20 clubs and 38 gameweeks, a long survivor run uses up every team. Once a player has used all 20, their slate wipes and every club becomes available again — the classic season-long LMS rule.
Option: no reset. Hard mode — 20 teams is all anyone ever gets. A player who exhausts their slate has no valid pick, which counts as a missed pick. If everyone left runs out together, the endgame rules crown them co-champions.
Late Join
Default: on.New players can join at any gameweek of the season and start picking from the current one — they're never punished for weeks before they existed. Great for pools that grow by word of mouth after the season starts.
Turn it off for a strict "everyone starts at GW1" pool where the whole field faces identical odds.
Rebuys
Default: off. When enabled, an eliminated player can pay back into the pot and re-enter alive from the current gameweek, keeping their team slate and pick history. The pot grows, the field stays bigger for longer.
Common in pub LMS. Decide up front whether rebuys are unlimited or one-per-player — that part is your call as commissioner, so put it in the pool description.
Not sure how the game itself works? Read the full Last Man Standing rules →
Step 2: Set the Entry Fee & Track Payments
Entry fees are optional — some pools play for bragging rights. But LMS is traditionally a pot game, and a season-long pot is exactly the kind of money that needs proper bookkeeping. The split of responsibilities is simple: the commissioner holds the money, Golazo tracks it.
Setting the Entry Fee
When creating the pool (or later in Pool Settings), enter the fee and list how people should pay you — Venmo handle, Zelle email, PayPal link, or "cash at the office." Members see the fee and payment methods when they join. Golazo never collects or processes entry fees.
Payment Tracking
The built-in payment tracker shows who's paid and who's stalling. Mark members paid as the money comes in, and send a one-click email reminder to anyone who hasn't. If you allow rebuys, those fees run through the same finances tab, so the pot total stays visible to the whole pool all season.
Golazo Hosting Fees
Hosting fees are paid once by the commissioner, not by individual members. Most pools fold it into the entry fee.
Step 3: Invite Your Group
Once the pool is created, share the invite code or link. Getting an LMS field together is the easiest sell in football — one pick a week is a commitment anyone can make.
Group chat blast
Drop the link in the group chat with the pitch: "One pick a week, win or you're out, last one standing takes the pot. Season starts Aug 21."
Lead with the house rules
Say up front whether draws eliminate, whether there are rebuys, and what the entry fee is. Groups join faster when the rules are already settled.
Target 10-40 players
LMS needs a field to whittle down. Ten players makes a good pub pool; thirty makes an office-wide event with eliminations worth announcing.
Set a join deadline — but don't sweat it
Ask people to join before the opener for the full 38-gameweek experience. With late join on (the default), stragglers can still enter at any gameweek.
Step 4: The Season Rhythm
Once the season starts, every gameweek runs the same loop — and almost none of it involves you:
Picks lock at the first kickoff
One deadline per gameweek: the first match's kickoff. Players can change their pick freely until then; after lock, everyone's picks are revealed so nobody can copy.
Two automatic reminders
Golazo sends a day-before nudge and a last-call reminder before every deadline — email and push — to every alive player who hasn't picked. Eliminated players are never nagged.
Live scoring
Results flow in from the real matches. Survivals, eliminations, and slate resets are scored automatically — no Monday-morning data entry, no arguments about what time a text arrived.
Missed pick = elimination
A player who's alive with no pick when the gameweek locks is out, same as a loss. The reminders exist so this stays rare.
Postponed match = void
If a player's team doesn't play — postponement, abandonment — the pick is voided: they survive and the club returns to their slate. Handled automatically, no commissioner ruling.
Your actual weekly job: post the carnage in the group chat. When a title contender draws at home to a promoted side and six people go out at once, that's the moment the pool exists for.
Step 5: Know the Endgame
Every LMS pool ends one of three ways, and Golazo scores all three automatically — worth explaining to your group up front so nobody is surprised in April:
1. Last One Standing
The classic finish: everyone else has been eliminated and one survivor remains. They're crowned champion the moment the deciding gameweek completes, and they take the pot.
2. Everyone Falls the Same Week — Co-Champions
If every remaining player goes out in the same gameweek, nobody is eliminated retroactively — the players who fell together are co-champions and share the pot. This is the most common finish in draws-eliminate pools, where a chaotic weekend can wipe out the whole field.
3. Season Ends With Multiple Survivors
If gameweek 38 completes with two or more players still alive, they're co-champions and split the pot. Golazo never auto-tiebreaks — if your group wants a tiebreaker (fewest slate resets is a popular one), agree on it before the season and apply it yourselves at the payout.
In every case the payout itself is yours to make — Golazo shows who won and tracks what's in the pot, and you settle up the same way you collected.
Timeline: The 2026-27 Season
Frequently Asked Questions
READY TO RUN YOUR POOL?
Set your house rules, share the code, and let Golazo run the boring bits for all 38 gameweeks.