Football API

Pagination and limits

Seven Football API endpoints return a paginated envelope. The rest return their result directly.

Paginated Not paginated

matches, highlights, teams, players, leagues, odds, bookmakers

countries, standings, head to head, last five games, and every endpoint with an id in its path, including lineups, live events, box score and match statistics.

The envelope

A paginated response wraps its results in data and adds two objects.

dataobject[]requiredThe results themselves. The shape depends on the endpoint.
paginationPaginationResponserequiredHow many results exist and where this page sits.3 fields
totalCountnumberrequiredResults matching your query, not the number returned on this page.
offsetnumberrequiredThe offset this page was fetched at.
limitnumberrequiredThe page size used.
planPlanResponserequiredYour current API subscription tier, and a message explaining it.2 fields
tierstringrequiredYour current API subscription tier.
messagestringrequiredExplanation message regarding your current tier.

Example response

200 application/json 
{
  "data": [
    "..."
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "totalCount": 490,
    "offset": 20,
    "limit": 100
  },
  "plan": {
    "tier": "BASIC",
    "message": "Some results might be hidden with FREE tier. Check your API coverage for more information: https://rapidapi.com/highlightly-api-highlightly-api-default/api/sport-highlights-api/details"
  }
}

Paging through results

limit sets the page size and offset skips that many results. Page by holding limit steady and advancing offset until you have covered totalCount. 

const key = process.env.HIGHLIGHTLY_API_KEY
const limit = 40
const all = []

let offset = 0
let total = Infinity

while (offset < total) {
  const url = `https://soccer.highlightly.net/highlights?leagueId=173537&limit=${limit}&offset=${offset}`
  const response = await fetch(url, {
    headers: { 'x-rapidapi-key': key }
  })

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(`Highlightly responded ${response.status}`)
  }

  const { data, pagination } = await response.json()

  all.push(...data)

  total = pagination.totalCount
  offset += limit
}

totalCount is the number of results matching your query, not the number on the current page, so it is the value to page against.

Your plan

Every paginated response carries a plan object. plan.tier is your current API subscription tier, and plan.message is an explanation message regarding it. An example message follows.

Some results might be hidden with FREE tier. Check your API coverage for more information.

Three endpoints carry plan notes for the Basic and Free plans. Highlights might have certain restrictions in place, and odds and geo restrictions are not available. The same restrictions apply with an All Sports API subscription.

Plans and their limits are listed on the Football API page and the All Sports API page.

Rate limits

Two response headers track your quota.

Header Meaning
x-ratelimit-requests-limit Requests your plan allows. Static.
x-ratelimit-requests-remaining Requests left. At zero, requests fail until the daily quota resets.

Paging a large result set spends quota quickly, since each page is one request. A highlights query returning 4,000 results at 40 per page, the highlights maximum, costs 100 requests. Cache results whose refresh interval is measured in hours rather than minutes.

On an All Sports API subscription, one quota covers every sport. Football requests draw on the same allowance as requests to any other sport, so paging a large football result set also reduces what is left for the rest.