Another New Team: Hunting Penguins

[sz_matyas]

Well, I was conned into joining hattrick without reading any of the previous posts since I am a bit of a soccer fan and have some more time now that I don't play Kings of Chaos. I had planned on having a week or at least a couple days between when I signed up and when I got my team based on what I heard and was going to use that time to get caught up on how to play the game. Instead I join at 5 pm and have an e-mail at 10 pm saying I have a team. I don't have a lot of time the next couple days, since I'm working on publishing a paper, and consequently can't read through all the long threads (I'll try to make it over to Krys thread though since he is in a similar position). Tips for getting started would be appreciated.

I am #4 in VI.544 Wisconsin Region of USA club #226236
First scheduled match is on Sat. the 24th
My team as given:
quote:

Your 18 players

Blair Meredith
TSI = 190 , 27 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and solid leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: poor Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak Passing: weak
Winger: poor Defending: inadequate
Scoring: weak Set pieces: passable

Donnie Stiles
TSI = 140 , 25 years, weak form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: poor Defending: poor
Scoring: weak Set pieces: passable

Fang Shih Tien
TSI = 30 , 27 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: poor
Winger: poor Defending: poor
Scoring: poor Set pieces: solid

Gabriel Ryder
TSI = 90 , 21 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: inadequate Set pieces: disastrous

Gaspare Cornejo
TSI = 90 , 19 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: weak
Winger: poor Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set pieces: poor

Jesse Mcghee
TSI = 590 , 23 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: poor Defending: passable
Scoring: weak Set pieces: passable

John Villa
TSI = 200 , 24 years, passable form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: poor
Winger: weak Defending: poor
Scoring: passable Set pieces: poor

Kevin Cardona
TSI = 160 , 25 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: poor
Winger: wretched Defending: passable
Scoring: poor Set pieces: inadequate

Luther Smith
TSI = 280 , 21 years, poor form
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: passable
Winger: poor Defending: weak
Scoring: poor Set pieces: weak

Mak Bailuo
TSI = 70 , 29 years, poor form
Has poor experience and poor leadership abilities [Technical]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak Passing: inadequate
Winger: poor Defending: poor
Scoring: poor Set pieces: disastrous

Matías Raigoso
TSI = 860 , 26 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and wretched leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: inadequate
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: wretched
Scoring: wretched Set pieces: inadequate

Neal Olvera
TSI = 80 , 24 years, weak form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: poor
Winger: inadequate Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set pieces: solid

Paul Henley
TSI = 560 , 21 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: weak Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: passable
Winger: weak Defending: inadequate
Scoring: weak Set pieces: passable

Percy Godwin
TSI = 0 , 51 years, wretched form
Has excellent experience and inadequate leadership abilities

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: wretched

Quentin Mayes
TSI = 1 720 , 25 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: solid Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable Defending: weak
Scoring: solid Set pieces: solid

Shad Goetz
TSI = 150 , 23 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: disastrous Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: disastrous
Winger: inadequate Defending: passable
Scoring: weak Set pieces: inadequate

Steve Ferguson
TSI = 330 , 25 years, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: weak Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set pieces: inadequate

William Mayolo
TSI = 540 , 27 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: passable Passing: poor
Winger: passable Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set pieces: weak



Thanks in advance for any help, because right now I know next to nothing about the game.

[Shabbaman]

Welcome on board. That Quentin Mayes is a good player, the rest is ehm, crap. The first suggestion is to read to rules and finish the manager challenge (for money, you know). And if you read Tubby's thread (http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3503), for instance, you can find a lot of info.

Or just fire away, we're eager to help.

Best tip of the day: try to arrange a friendly for today (or tomorrow). That's going to be difficult, because most players arrange their matches in advance. But if you look in the advertisements sections (somewhere halfway the left column) there's a friendlies section. Post an ad there, and start challenging people. Playing a match is important, because otherwise your playerd don't get trained.

Next up: deciding what you want to train. Goalkeeping is very easy to start with.

[Kemal]

Maybe getting a friendly isn't that important at the moment considering that your squad at this time doesn't really have a player that really benefits from being trained (they're not good enough, I'm afraid).

If your short on time, I'd prioritize the following things:

- Most important thing is to get a training regime started for your team, as that is the most solid method of getting forward for new teams. Goalkeeping is a good training for newer teams and/or teams with less time, there's probably a lot more on that in the Tubby thread, as Tubby is training goalies.
If you do go for goalkeeping training (personally I'd recommend it), make sure you get:

1) at least 1 trainable goalkeeper before the next league match (sunday) and 1 before the next friendly after today. A trainable goalkeeper would be an 18 year old solid (about 100K value)
2) replace your current coach by using external recruiting and go for a passable coach with poor leadership. Most people here would probably recommend a solid coach, which is better but more expensive, and I think it might be doable to survive, however it will require some financial balancing acts, and a little luck with not getting your keepers injured, in the first few months.

Whether you'd like to take it relaxed the first few weeks, or aim for optimal results, is basicly the choice you make when going for a passable or solid coach.

Also, if you want to do reasonably okay in the league next season (starts in 4 weeks) you will need some extra money for some reinforcements, since as Shabba said, most players you got aren;t really any good. That's not an immediate concern though.

Finally, as for hiring staff, I would go for hiring 1 spokesperson and 1 physio now, plus 1 goalkeeping coach next week as well.

Good luck and welcome to HT! :)

[Shabbaman]

You know, I do have a trainee on the transferlist now. The deadline is something about 1 CET, that's about dinner time in where you are, I guess.

[Socrates]

Welcome. :) I'm a newbie, but since I'm mentioned in this thread (I'm mentioned because I'm a newbie though [tongue] ), I might just post as well.

Indeed your team seems pretty weak, except for that Quentin Mayes, which could be used as an inner midfielder or a forward (is that right ? :D ).

I'm on my way to GK training, so you're welcome to read my thread if that's the route you intend to take soon.

[Tubby Rower]

sz_matyas, Kemal stated that a trainable GK would be an 18 year old solid, and I would argue that you should be able to get a 17yo solid at a reasonable price since it's at the end of the season. 1 year matters a good bit for your trainees. Shabba's GK trainee is a good one since he's 1 weeks training from popping to solid.

I think that the following players aren't too terribly bad and don't need to be fired/sold right at the beginning.
- Jesse Mcghee (Defending, but the Head specialty will bite you as a defender since a technical forward could run circles around him)
- John Villa (forward, or even defensive forward)
- Kevin Cardona (defender)
- Quentin Mayes (as people mentioned. he could be played as an inner midfielder, forward, defensive forward, or offensive inner mid)
- Shad Goetz (defender or even wing back)
- Steve Ferguson (winger)
- William Mayolo (winger to middle or inner midfielder)

All in all, you do have a crappy starting squad. But do not fear, as you'll likely be playing against a bunch of bots and their easy to beat. I just looked at your league, and it appears as though they just dumped 6 other new teams in that league. The #1 guy has been there since the beginning of the season. It looks like if you win against Itailia5 this week then you have a good chance at finishing 2nd. It might not sound like a lot to the other guys here, but the prize for finishing 2nd is $60k, 3rd is $45k, and 4th is $23k. That extra boost in a starting squad will help out tremendously. So aim for 2 wins. That means buying a bunch of decent players before your match on Sunday.

so here's what I would do right now.
- set training to stamina and 100% intensity for now
- finish the challenges as quick as possible
- buy players to fill out your lineup. (more on this later as I have to finish my coffee and get to work. I'll goof off when I get bored in a little while and give you a little more insight as to what to buy. Or the other guys here will)
- save some money for at least a passable skilled / poor leadership coach = $79 600 (although I would recommend a solid / poor coach for $268 700)


According to the rules, you can go into 200k in debt while buying players. I would try to limit the debt that you have to 100k - 150k. Your income at the beginning will cause you to lose some money for a good while. But you should be able to manage the 100-150k in debt and not have to worry with it. GK training is fast so if you need to sell one, it's not that big of a deal. The challenges should give you $250k and with your initial $50k and the ability to go into debt, that leaves you with say $400k to play with. Don't spend it all in one place ;)

[Tubby Rower]

Ok here is what I have come up with... play a 4-4-2

Forwards - Quentin Mayes & John Villa

Inner Midfielders - purchase 2 of them (try to get passable playmnaking with passing inadequate or better) ~$45k - 50k each

Wingers - Steve Ferguson & William Mayolo

Defenders - Kevin Cardona & Jesse McGhee (if you get time try to replace Jesse Mcghee, you might even try to sell him and buy someone with similar qualities)

Wing Backs - Shad Goetz. You need to buy one of these guys too (passable winger and defender)
maybe $30k-40k


everyone else fire. You might be able to sell Luther Smith or Paul Henley , but I doubt that you'll get your money back for putting them on the transfer list. You can only fire one guy every 12 hours so you might want to start now so that you finish by Saturday evening when the USA economic updates are ran and you pay their salaries again.

Oh and if you are training GK's then you need to get 2 trainees. I would recommend 1 17 yo passable (shabba's is a good start) and 1 18 solid. after you get them, get your new coach and switch your training to GK @ 100%. If you are training anything else, disregard most of what I've said.

[Shabbaman]

Really, the guy I pulled might do with a single training, and because he has already played this wee k you'll get a free training. I hate pushing this guy, but it's pure gold. GOLD! Anyway, do with him what you want. His player id is 122840745, deadline at 00:31 CET.

[Tubby Rower]

I'm tempted to sell one of my guys just to make the money off of him...

[sz_matyas]

Thanks for the tips. I'm getting started on the challenges and trying to book a friendly right now. What would be a good price for your goalie Shabba, current bid is $70K (mine), slightly above the asking price. As for youth squad, what is a good investment level. (I set it at $10K/week, since I don't think I have the money to support a better one) My first pull was a 20 yr old goalkeeper with 0 TSI and no skills at all, making him my first play fired.

Well I should really get back to work, but this gave me someplace to start.

[Shabbaman]

The price might go up, the average price is 96k. But since the deadline is rather late you have an advantage. Just make sure what you want to offer on him.
There's not really a reason to start investing in your youth squad right away.

[Mistfit]

I did not invest in my Youth Squad until my 3rd season when I knew I could afford the highest level of participation.

I think I made the right move personally.

[arne1]

I agree with Mistfit that it is unwise to sart to pump money in you yuth squad right away, But when you start with 5k up to weak and 10k up to passable. It just takes you a few weeks extra to get to excellent and it saves you a lot of money.

[sz_matyas]

Well, I didn't get Shabba's goalie thanks to a late bidding war, where it went from $82K to over $120K in a matter of under 10 min. I put another bid out, but thanks to not being able to complete challenges until I play a couple games, I can't bid over about $100K. First match in about an hour, so we'll see how the two new midfielders I picked up on the wire play.

[Tubby Rower]

your opponent played a 3-3-4 formation. I don't think that it's legal and he'll lose training this week [crazyeye]

Take your time on getting GK. if your in a rush, you'll pay too much.

[sz_matyas]

Well in case you haven't checked, the only player I had with any leadership skills got hurt (1 week only). Still, I got a passable 17 yr old goalie for $50K, who, having the next best leadership skills gets to be my captain for the first real game. Otherwise, looks like I'll have to get some of my defense fixed and maybe score in a fashion other then penalty kicks as I lost my friendly 4-2. Otherwise figure I might hunt for a decent wing defender and decide what formation would be decent for my team, maybe shift to have an extra midfielder to use the extra I accidently picked up. New additions if people are interested include:
quote:
Eugenio Gálvez
TSI = 1 660 , 17 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: wretched Keeper: passable
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: disastrous

Georgi Gúrkov
TSI = 990 , 20 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: passable
Winger: poor Defending: inadequate
Scoring: weak Set pieces: weak

Tino Djurhuus
TSI = 550 , 30 years, poor form
Has inadequate experience and weak leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: excellent Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: inadequate
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set pieces: solid

Harvey Johnson
TSI = 630 , 19 years, passable form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: passable Passing: inadequate
Winger: inadequate Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor Set pieces: poor



Tino and Georgi started for me in midfield and Harvey is bakcing them up (got him on a $5K bid that I wasn't planning on winning)

[socralynnek]

You know that a 30year old player can already lose skill (they change it next season s.t. it's a steady decline, but now he can or can not lose skill on Mondays but when he loses some, it can be quite drastic)
But if you got him cheap it's not much of a risk and he at least got some experience, so he will help your ratings directly.

[Tubby Rower]

Funny, I was thinking that Tino was a decent purchase (depending on the price paid for him). doesn't the unpredictable skill get better with experience? But I haven't seen many unpredictable events. poor form is hurting him though.

[sz_matyas]

I think I got Tino $30K, Georgi for $20K and Harvey for $5K (on a not really expecting to win, but at least raise the bid level type thing). For my next challenge I have to try a new formation, I think maybe my next friendly since I kind of want to make sure I win my next two games against underpowered teams (not that mine is that great, but I figure better use a strong formation than a new one). I got a new coach from Romania and will try to start GK training next week, probably look for another trainee in the meantime. Next signing is likely a wingback so that area isn't nearly so weak.

[Tubby Rower]

you can change your formation back to what you want after the challenge is complete. So set it up as a 3-5-2 and then save it. Wait for confirmation that you have completed the challenge and then go back and change it to what suits you best.

[sz_matyas]

Well, first league match went well. He had a total walkover of a setup and I won 4-1, HO said it should have been 4-0 in simulations after the match but don't really care. Keepers in my price range to train are hard to come by and missed out on a couple because I had something going on this evening (a most of the way passible 18 yr old went for ~$30K, which I would definately have taken and trained). Any tips for the offseason, should I use MOTS for my last match? How can I up my star players form from weak so that he actually does some damage? How many GK coaches should I use?

That's about all the quick questions I can think of, BTW I am now 2nd in my division by 1 pt and worst I can finish is 4th.

[arne1]

quote:Originally posted by sz_matyas

Well, first league match went well. He had a total walkover of a setup and I won 4-1, HO said it should have been 4-0 in simulations after the match but don't really care. Keepers in my price range to train are hard to come by and missed out on a couple because I had something going on this evening (a most of the way passible 18 yr old went for ~$30K, which I would definately have taken and trained). Any tips for the offseason, should I use MOTS for my last match? How can I up my star players form from weak so that he actually does some damage? How many GK coaches should I use?

That's about all the quick questions I can think of, BTW I am now 2nd in my division by 1 pt and worst I can finish is 4th.

I would certainly mots the last match off the season since teamspirit will be reset for the next season. let him play a match every week is the most important thing you can do. Form is also influenced by the skill of your coach and the amount of assistant trainers you have (for goalkeepers goalkeeper assistatt trainer). I would just let him play every weekand hope for the best. How many GK coaches you should hire is mainly dependend on your financial situation, bur since your training GK's I would say around 4.

[sz_matyas]

I blew most of my debt ceiling on an almost solid 17 yr old (equivalent to Shabba's, but went for a bit less) and consequently won't be able to do much more than log in and set assignments. Debating whether to train stamina or pin my hopes on selling an 18 yr solid keeper at the start of next season, probably have to decide that fairly quickly.

In other news, my supporter is delirious, just wish he would go out and tell some of his friends so that I will actually have a crowd on my first home game (next Sat). Once I actually do sell my first trainee, thinking better coach, new trainee and start investing in the YS. Anything left over will probably get either a wing defender or Midfielder.

[Shabbaman]

That goalkeeper is already on the market again for 200k... I wouldn't start investing in the youth squad if I were you. The break even point is on average somewhere in the 6th or 7th season after you start investing the full 20k a week. I think this is my first season that I'm actually making a profit (but last season was OK as well), and I'm playing this game for some years (!) now.

Have you decided what to train after goalkeeper training? If you decide on midfield or forwards, you could skip buying defenders now, for instance. I suggest you look into training wingers. There are very little people training that (especially at CDZ), and you can keep using all the players you're buying now (which saves you money, indirectly).

Obviously, training playmaking is the safest bet, but in the current market it's difficult to make any safe bet. With wing training you do something different than "all the others". You do have to gain the advantage somewhere, don't you?

[Tubby Rower]

I'm thinking that starting to train PM right now might be a good idea. Mainly because everyone else is freaking out and looking at switching training regimes. all of these people are going to be getting out of the PM market and will therefore unknowingly decrease the supply and therefore increase the price.

[Shabbaman]

Out of PM training? Where did you get that notion?

[Tubby Rower]

hence the wild speculation part of the post. Maybe I just need to post the tame speculations

[socralynnek]

i know people that switche to PM training, because they think that they can't get much money with any training regime and then they train PM to strengthen their midfield...

[Mistfit]

I am a bit undecided right now as to if I will stay with PM or not. If I do it is not because of the drastic drop in IM prices it is because I have a pretty good stable of IM's right now and to get better I think I will have to switch to somthing else. I am considering switching to GK training for a while to improve that spot and to try somthing new.

[Shabbaman]

quote:Originally posted by socralynnek

i know people that switche to PM training, because they think that they can't get much money with any training regime and then they train PM to strengthen their midfield...


Exactly my line of thought, and why I am considering training PM myself. What kept me training forwards for this long is that I was hoping that enough people would stop training forwards. I might keep that up, but I expect that the transfer market will crash even harder next season, when a lot of people find out they can't cope with the wages of the players they got from the bargain bin next season.

But please, let's keep that discussion in the "crashing transfer market thread", and not in this one.

Bottom line: train something that's useful like midfielders or defenders.

Or consider something nobody's training, like wingers. With enough people switching to training PM, that market could crash even harder than the forward market (wishful thinking from my part). Unlikely, since a. everybody and their mother needs midfielders and b. kemal switched to training PM and he's always right.

[Kemal]

Though Kemal is almost assured to make a loss on his A-batch trainees due to the collapsing market. But I chose PM training because I was too weak in that area to compete at the start of the season, making money with these trainees was in this case of secondary importance to me.

If your league doesn't force you to strengthen your midfield beyond your financial capabilities, I would advise against training PM to be honest. [/selfinterest from this PM trainer] ;)

[Shabbaman]

An utopian playmaking IM only costs 1.3M ;)

[sz_matyas]

I figure I need to kick out at least 3 or 4 GKs before I have enough cash to look at training something else. The guys I'm buying right now are junk (besides my two trainees)and will never amount to much besides filling space and keeping me out of the bottom of the last division. That said winging would be a fun second choice and would be possible on a limited budget thanks to only being able to train 4 at a time (depending on offense or defense training), rather than the 8-10 needed for some of the other positions.

[sz_matyas]

Got crushed in my friendly 5-0 and to make matters worse, had 3 guys get bruised but playing. Don't know how this affects there abilities for the next game or how long it takes them to heal, but 3? come on. Didn't get lucky and pop my new goallie to solid, guess that's next week. Quentin Mayes is still performing 1-1.5 stars less than HO predicts, hopefully he'll get over it.
Is it worth hiring a specialist to deal with all my bruised guys, since they seem to just keep coming (and healing after a couple matches) and I have almost no depth?

[Tubby Rower]

bruised players will play a little worse than normal. If they are injurewhile they are bruised, their injures are added together. You could hire 1 doctor or just leave it alone.

[arne1]

Let it be.

[sz_matyas]

Ok, due to having a bit more spare time than I should and being bored, I went and made a major mistake. Specifically I saw that an 18 yr old solid keeper was running at $75K, which I thought was well below market value (tranfer compare wasn't that populated, but running around $100-$110). This led me to place a bid just to drive up the price a bit, bad idea as I won him, leaving me with 3 keepers all relatively recent aquisitions and $150K in debt.

My current keepers are a 17yr old passible ~15-20% to solid
A 17 yr old solid just popped
A 18 yr old solid recently popped

Who do I sell, when and for how much (i.e. new season sell the 17 yr old as an 18 and suck the damage till then, sell one now and hope to get lucky, wait until a specific day and time to send one onto the wire for training purposes, turn over the new guy ASAP) Tips would be greatly appreciated.

[sz_matyas]

The reason I thought my 17 yr old hadn't popped a couple posts back was his TSI didn't jump, but that was because he lost form while getting the boost in skill (went from solid to passible)

[akots]

Well, you've got to train them for some time, may be a season or two. Just calculate the profit and see how much you can earn as long as you can afford their salaries. Profit will approximately be equal to market price (minus agent, mother club, and previous owner fees) minus purchased price and minus salary for the player for the time he had been trained and minus some miscellaneous other expenses. Some people do not count the salary for at least one trainee because you've got to have a keeper anyhow, so it does not count towards trainee-related expenses.

Also, you need to put some effort into selling him for a worthy price (select a good timing for putting him on the market and try to advertise somehow).

In general, it is a good idea to have 3 trainees since one of them can get injured.

[sz_matyas]

Managed to finish 2nd in my league with enough of a draw in the last game that with the friendly I should avoid losing money this week (don't look forward to the offseason, but the bonus should help cover some of the stupidity with the goalies).

First cup opponent is F.C. Shaolin, 225477. He is slightly better than me and uses a 3-5-2 attack in the center strategy (don't really know how to best counter this with my current team which seems to be best suited towards 4-4-2 or 5-3-2 with attackers towards the wings). It should be a home game and he isn't that much better, so I'm wondering if I should MoTs it, hope for a 2nd cup game and PiC both my first league game (presumably against the guy who relegated) and the 2nd Cup game if I win, since it would be against someone possibly two divisions above me.

[bed_head7]

MotSing the cup and then PiCing the next two is probably exactly what I would do. Though your mid is not that strong, so MotSing won't have a huge effect, it may be effective in this case. I haven't examined your team and his well enough to be sure though.

[sz_matyas]

In a wow I wish I hadn't played that match. My last frienldy I lost 1-0, and had two players (including my top midfielder injured) plus one bruised, especially humorous in that I was already leading the division in injuries now don't really know what to do. Unfortunately I had put some of my top guys in because I had four bruised players and didn't want them to get extra hurt, glad that worked out so well. Adding insult to injury, there were only 800 people in attendance so I got almost no money from the game.

Thinking about hiring a few doctors so I can get my 2 week injured guy ready for the cup as I will likely need him if I'm to win my first round, definately going to have to use counter-attack as I will be completely dominated in the midfield.
quote:
Quentin Mayes
TSI = 2 090 , 25 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and inadequate leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: wretched
Playmaking: solid Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable Defending: weak
Scoring: solid Set pieces: solid

once again earned 1.5 stars. I know he should be playing a star to a star and a half better than this, but can't figure out why or what to do with him. Do I sell him and get someone with decent skills who actually performs, do I sit him in games that count, do I keep running him out there and hope that this is just a streak of terrible luck. I mean if any of his 5 performances had meritted at least 2.5 stars, I would run him out without thinking, but honestly he about has me at wits end.

[akots]

Well, the injured will heal with time and one or two doctors unless they are really old. Just make sure you can make the ends meet financially. Everyone is struggling with injuries. I've never had such horrible number of injuries in previous seasons, and a few others complain as well so it seems they've increased the frequency somewhat. There is nothing you can do about it.

The guy Mayes is in poor form. Just keep fielding him (may be in friendlies only) and the form might change eventually given time. This hattrik thingy requires considerable time and with some things you just have to cope.

[Robboo]

hey SZ..I set you the challenge.

[sz_matyas]

The challenge with Robboo has been completed and the only positive thing I can say is that I don't have to worry about any goalkeeping controversy, thanks to my fine Polish keeper going down after a bad challenge. Hopefully he should be back up early in the season, but I'm firing the doctors as soon as Tino Djurhuus is healed as I really need a midfielder and don't need an extra problem at GK to worry about.

I lost 3-1 with my only goal coming on a random counter-attack and only seemed to manage a SE as far as other chances go (hattrick is down so I can't verify my claims, just seemed to be a night to forget).

[Robboo]

I think I won in the midfield. IF you had your better MI you would have had more possession. Sorry about the injury. I will fine my guy:) The forward that scored the hat trick is my highest rated scorer. I had planned on holding him out but he formed dropped last week.

Did the game give you the info you wanted for the cup match. I attemped to mimic him as best that I could..if anything I think I was a bit higher rated on offense and midfield in this game than what he has been in his last league games. If you get your midfield up..I think you will win.

[sz_matyas]

Thanks for the game, it definately gave me something to chew on for my cup game. Looks like I will have to get creative in my lineup to emphasize midfield though it might be late to try the 3-5-2. I'm thinking I might swing some of my best players to midfield at the expense of attack and defense.

Don't worry too much about the injury, as much as I hate my guys getting hurt that solved a challenge on how to set up my training rotation (though a $1 fine might be in order). The biggest thing I need is to increase my scoring chances, can't score if you don't shoot and all that.

[Robboo]

Good luck..I will be watching with much interest.

[sz_matyas]

Hmm, might have to stop playing friendlies or something. Lost money going to play Aggie this week and now I have 2 of 3 people I feel confident in as forwards hurt for multiple weeks. On the plus side, this might get me on the leaderboard of something at alltidhattrick.org. Unfortunately, I can't even buy replacements being 157K and climbing in debt (hopefully get a goalie pop to excellent in 3 or 4 weeks to cover that).

Just as a note to CDZ people for the next 4-5 weeks: I can't afford international friendlies given that I need a little space in case my last reasonable forward gets hurt. I think it's great, but if you could visit me right now, I will try and be willing to travel come CDZ cup and slight cash reserves.

[Tubby Rower]

I'll likely be losing my cup match and will challenge you. I'm in the US so you wouldn't have any travel costs.

[Robboo]

I am availablenext week also for a in-nation trip...I wont let my guy who hurt your goalie play :)

[barbu1977]

When I'll be out of the cup, I'll come and pay you a visit.

My team normaly covers its traveling cost, being a in div V (out of VI), I attrack reasonable crowds.

[socralynnek]

I played newbie challenger and challenged you, krys, robboo and a friend of mine at their home.

We' ll see who accepts first (you'll surely get more money than playing at Tubby's ;) )

[sz_matyas]

Thanks all for the challenges, it is greatly appreciated. I ended up taking the first one when I logged in, which was Deep Space Elm. This should be good for the income as it is a foreign match, though he is position to torch me, maybe give him a chance to try some new tactics (I'm planning on trying to get my play creatively up). Also it was fun to see people I haven't really met were willing to help out and will be more than willing to return the favor in a short time.

Best wishes to all and I look forward to the CDZ cup when I can return the favor by providing victories for you all (not that I won't try my hardest, just don't have the players to compete with most of you yet).

[Tubby Rower]

FWIW, you don't develop experience in tactics (ie, AOW, AIM, play creativly, pressing, & counter-attacks). These are based on the skills of the players that you field. You only develop experience in formations (ie: 4-3-3, 5-3-2, 3-4-3, 5-4-1, etc)


This is from Hattrick X-files (http://www.databased.at/hattrick/x-files/pages/pages_en/matches_en.asp?file=matches)
quote:[u]tactical types</u>
[u]counterattack CA</u>
use it if you got a strong defence and attack but a worse midfield than your opponent. this tactical type is only effective if you are not dominating the midfield.
the ability of your squad to get a counterattack on a missed chance of your opponent is dependent on the defending skill (1x) the passing skill (2x) and the experience of your defenders. scoring on a CA is calculated like a normal chance and therefore up to your attacking strength vs. opposite teams defence.
disadvantage: you lose 7% of your midfield strength taken away after comparing your and your opponents midfield!. (this means if you would have had 51% of the midfield the counter-attacking tactic will get ineffective but you still loose 7% of your midfield strength and therefore get the weaker midfield then = bad)
formations: 4-3-3 with very CA-fitting defenders, 5-3-2 with very good forwards
currently its said that the max number of chances created from counterattacking is 3.

[u]attack on wings AOW</u>
tries to turn middle attacks into wing attacks. could be used against a team with weak wing defence.
the ability to turn a middle attack onto the wing is calculated by summing the passing skills of all fielded players excluding the keeper. also experience bonus is added.
depending on this ability you get from 20% to 40% more attacks on the wing.
disadvantage: weakens your middle defence.
formations: play it with 2 offensive wingers and 2 wingbacks

[u]attack in the middle AIM</u>
tries to turn wing attacks into middle attacks. could be used against a team with weak central defence.
the ability to turn a wing attack into the middle is calculated by summing the passing skills of all fielded players excluding the keeper. also experience bonus is added.
depending on this ability you get from 20% to 40% more attacks in the middle.
disadvantage: weakens your wing defence.
formations: you could play your wingers to the middle to gain midfield dominance 2 defensive wingbacks would be important in that case.

[u]pressing PRESS</u>
aiming at a 0:0 the amount of chances in a game can be reduced.
the ability to reduce the chances is calculated by summing the defending skill of all fielded players excluding the keeper. powerful players defending skills are counted twice. also the players stamina is more important (should have excellent). experience count into the pressing skill aswell.
disadvantage: your players will loose stamina faster.
playing pressing or any other tactic wont affect the chances of injuries.
formations: 5-4-1, 4-5-1

[u]play creatively PC</u>
using this tactic will increase the chances of » special events for both teams. so...
? your team is optimized for SEs
? your opponents team is not
? you can spare a bit of your defending rating
if all of the above is true for your next match and the weather is right you could try to get some extra advantage out of playing creatively.
dont forget: Penalties, Free-kicks, Counterattacks and Pressing events are NOT special events!
disadvantage for a team playing this tactic: loss on defending rating ((dont know the drawback figures by now))

[sz_matyas]

Oh well, I need work on my 3-5-2 anywat, I figured the play creatively would be useful since 11 of my 15 (when healthy) outfield players have special abilities. Might come in handy if it's a close match even if I'm not in great shape as far as passing or experience special events others in my league aren't as well

[sz_matyas]

Had a series of disasters, most notably that through a mixup in planning for my league game, I put the same trainee out for both games last week. As the one I didn't put out was who I wanted to train and sell in a hurry, this was very bad news. Also had my forwards (the guys I play there anyway) drop in skill, so I'll be lucky to get 1.5 stars out of both of them, making this an urgent need when I actually do get money.

On the bright side, if I win this next league game I should be able to run my division win streak to 10-12 games very easily provided no key injuries. I'll still finish 2nd, the 1st place guy is that much better, but thanks to going into debt for the right talent I'm a solid #2. Challenging Mistfit to a friendly this week, as I'll do anything for a buck and gives me a chance to see where I fit in compared to a solid div V team in case by some miracle I do finish 1st.

[bed_head7]

If you will solidly finish second, don't worry about replacing your forwards. If you don't really need more skills now, then hold onto the money or keep training your trainee. And skill drops are incremental, so your player went from low passable to high inadequate, or low solid to high passable. The performance loss won't be substantial, just the sale price really drops, and you probably wouldn't get much for them anyway.

[sz_matyas]

I need to sell my trainee to get out of debt, which would leave me at ~$100K to the good. My plan on investing in a forward is to go bargain hunting for bad form/stamina/experience, which I can improve with time. Also since supporters love to see the goals, this will help on that front as well. Right now I'm able to score a maximum of about 3 goals a game, which might lead to a couple draws and a chance for teams to sneak by me, especially if they get a new dynamic owner (i.e. ego boost of crushing my opponents). Since it would be a young guy I could keep pace with the current 3rd best team who is constantly improving, though I have the slight advantage of edging him in our first game.

[sz_matyas]

Will have my first legitimate profit over a two week span, thanks to 7081 fans showing up for my game this week. Once I can sell my first trainee and stop spending 8K/week on interest, that should be a regular occurance or something. As the next 7 or so games should be pushovers, getting me team spirit and supporters moods raised a little should be simple. Overall, I'm considering a couple options with long term consequenses.

1) I currently have 341 Satisfied Fans (not counting post-game updates), but that should increase both during the excesive win streak I'll be building. Is it wise to hire a 2nd spokesman yet? I remember reading somewhere that you should have 1 for every 250 fans, but at my current growth rate (~35/week) I'll cross 500 in about 3-4 weeks assuming more join as the mood increases. I also want to take every advantage of this week section in my schedule to bring in money.

2)I'm thinking about switching training once I have accrued ~$1M in cash to invest in new training. It just doesn't pay to only train 2 players at a time for GK if I can get more elsewhere. I anticipate this happening towards the middle of next season, but will have ~750K after a new coach when I finish training and selling my current GKs, leading to the question: Should I spend the money on great GK trainees so I'll get more later once I sell them and swap or invest in younger trainees for the new position or just bank the money for a while.

This is in issue since I won't have the bulk of the money for about 8 weeks, but I'll have some of it in 1-2 weeks depending on when the first trainee pops and as much as I want a new forward, the extra cash might play a role in this situation.

[tofra]

I did some calculating last weekend, because i'm also going to switch training. My starting point was, buying a player with 'solid' goaltending, defending, playmaking and scoring. All prices (according to HAM) where beteen 110k-130k. I used the training time from www.hattrickmania.com. I also used a whole season for this calculation. To get the most profit you should pick playmaking (+/- 5M after one year), defending (+/- 4,5M), scoring (+/- 3,5M) and goaltending (+/- 2,5M)
The difference is for playmaking and defending you should do an investment of about 1M before you can start. For scoring 600k and goaltending 200k.

[sz_matyas]

Well, my 2nd trainee (the one I'm planning on selling) just popped to excellent. On the downside, the very same week he dropped in form and he has never had a game above 3 stars. I'm hoping that this all still enough to garner at least $300K for me after fees, but I'm a lot more suspect now. I'll probably put him on the market Sat. morning, so that he gets the prime Tues. rush.

The lack of interest payments and salary drop, probably mean that I will lose very little money even on away weeks, still I've had a terrible couple weeks in form (-10/+2 over two weeks) and the trainee who was going to take Stanislaws place is now in poor form and dropping. Might end up trying to get him up two more levels instead of only one in hopes his form will become reasonable.

[sz_matyas]

Sold my trainee, but thanks to the attack of the form monster and the failing market (along with my strategy for selling him), he only went for $255,000. Of this money, I frittered away $120,000 on
quote:
Jörn Vinsjö (39548382)
24 years, inadequate form, healthy
A nasty fellow who is balanced and righteous.
Has poor experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Nationality: Sverige
Total Skill Index (TSI): 1 340
Wage: 1 296 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: inadequate Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: weak Defending: poor
Scoring: excellent Set Pieces: wretched

Career Goals: 18
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 1


By transfer compare he's worth ~160-200K, so I feel good there, but I'm still $11,000 in debt. Thanks to dropping expenses and good recent crowds I hope to have that covered in two weeks, but my hopes are down for when my next trainee pops in 3-4 weeks. He was supposed to get me a new coach and a trainee while going slightly into debt.

Well at least I've got a 3 star forward and should be able to get him a partner at seasons end fixing my last major weakness. Barring injury that would let me field a team with everyone 2.5+ stars.

[sz_matyas]

Things have taken a bitter turn as I tried to get ahead of myself and now am on the verge of economic meltdown.
Basic situation right now is that I'm $430K in debt have a new coach (solid/poor) and four GK. The reason I have 4 is that I have a 19 yr excellent that I listed for $265K, but looking on TC they are either going for $200 or $300K at that age skill and though one sold at $300K 10 min before he was up, he got no bids (had already bought his replacement). Second I have an 18 yr old that I thought would pop to formidable, but he only made it 0.98 of the way there, but I found a good cheap replacement. Having thought my first would sell I went for a new coach as one of the trainees is only 2 weeks away from excellent with a solid coach 3 weeks with a passable.

Even worse is that I was planning on upgrading my stadium before two big games coming up, now that looks out the window. In addition the prices for formidable 18 yr olds have dropped around $100k since their announcement, basically leaving me with a bunch of goalies and debt.

The 19 yr old excellent is back on the market for $250K (about the minimum I'd take for my backup plans to work), but I'm out of ideas about the collapsing market for my other keeper and how I'm going to deal with the debt. Suggestions about what day of the week to list guys for maximum profit might be helpful, but I will probably be much weaker for the untimely press announcement and further market collapse. Should be able to sell out the last two home games which should help though.

[arne1]

all I have to say is do NOT panic. You have two weeks after you go below minus 500k to get above again. Since yuo are selling 2 player this will not be a problem.

[sz_matyas]

Probably a good idea, it's just hard watching my economics spiral out of control past the point of trying sneak an extra excellent striker while upgrading the stadium to seeing myself at break even level without any upgrades (though I'm beginning to guess that crowds will become much more important sources of income with lower training values and the stadium might be something to save for)

[socralynnek]

Yeah, don't panic...
stadium is a long-term thing, an upgrade will take a few seasons to pay off, so it is necessary only later on...
Learn from your mistakes, never take a price on the market for granted, especially young players lose a lot when it comes to the end of the season (it probably has nothing to do with the announcement)

and HO or such might be slightly inaccurate, s.t. pops might occur a week later than predicted.

try to sell your player for less, better than never sold (or train him one more level and sell the replacement and some other player to get money)

[Tubby Rower]

take the HHGG's motto to heart. Don't Panic. when you start panicking is when you are that deep in debt and have no players to sell ;)

[arne1]

quote:Originally posted by Tubby Rower

take the HHGG's motto to heart. Don't Panic. when you start panicking is when you are that deep in debt and have no players to sell ;)

The HHGG always has good advice. In match 8 of this season I used the improbability drive, it gave me victory.

[Tubby Rower]

[lol] Heart of Gold, baby!! Heart. Of. Gold.

[sz_matyas]

Following the advice of Hitchhikers fans, I didn't panic and it all kind of worked out with a change in strategy. Player sales brought in a well over $100K less than expected, but they sold as I was willing to go cut rate.

So even though I will easily sell out my last 2 games, I can't afford to upgrade my stadium this season (maybe shift around a little and do it middle of next season). Instead I went out and upgraded my team and will finish the season (hopefully) out of debt. In regards to buying low, here's a nice catch in my view:

quote:
Grady Lambert (118905413)
19 years, wretched form, healthy
A controversial person who is fiery and honest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.

Nationality: Oceania
Total Skill Index (TSI): 440
Wage: 1 128 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: wretched Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: inadequate
Winger: weak Defending: wretched
Scoring: excellent Set Pieces: poor

Career Goals: 5
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0


Bought him for $114K, which is nice given the inadequate passing and excellent scoring with just enough wing to use him to a side if I need. His best game was 3.5 stars, so can't complain there if I can get him back up to form.

[BCLG100]

Good luck SZ, sorry i completly forgot about your financial situation, if id have remembered id have challenged you in the states.

[sz_matyas]

no prob $6K affects nothing relatively. Plus I'm clear now.

[sz_matyas]

I've had a team for one full season now and figure it's time to take an inventory over what I've accomplished and how to move ahead.

Economics: currently $120,000 in debt, but counting cup games as revenue neutral and one major home game left, I should finish around $15-20K to the good after the bonus for finishing second. When I'm out of debt I lose about $4000/week on fixed costs/revenue, so this means I can support a youth squad as soon as I want, though likely not until at least late next season.

I have 620 fans and this is growing at ~30/week though it is slowing significantly and my fans have been insanely happy, which I can't expect to last. I figure I can hope for ~700 at the end of this season and maybe up to 1000 by the end of next. Overall, I won't be able to expand my stadium fast enough to accomodate them, but I'll have to deal with that as it happens.

Assets: I have two decent but not great keeper trainees, where both should be 18 yrs. old and excellent by the end of the season. I have a solid/poor coach, which should help with form as well as actually getting pops to be a bit more frequent.

I have two quality forwards (both excellent scoring and 3.5 stars with prev. team) who should be able to easily carry me into the 5th division, though no farther. My wingers and defense are adequate at best, but these are almost all original players and can hold their own enough for now in my particularly weak league until I have excess cash to make my push. My midfield is average for 6th division and aging, but I intend to switch to IM training as soon as I can afford to buy good trainees (i.e. next season when I sell my GK trainees) so it should hold through until then.

I just sent the order to upgrade my stadium to 15000 seats, so that's a big bonus and it should finish paying for itself right when I'm ready to make my move up.

On pitch: I'm playing in an exceptionally weak league, which will have either 3 bots or 3 new teams next season and 2 more that are grossly mismanaged, giving 10 easy wins. I'm slightly better than the other team that is remaining in the division, though he should have a pile of cash based on his crowds and spending habits, so that could be a wildcard. The true concern is who is relegating down. The top team is so dominant that we will likely get one of the best teams coming down to us. My hope is that it's a bot or something similar, so that I can control my destiny and end up exactly one more season in div 6, otherwise I might be stuck in the cycle of quality teams that keep replacing each other for 3-4 seasons.

Overall, based on some of the other newer teams in CDZ, (Tubby, krysz, etc.) I seem to be holding my own in a weak league and despite some mistakes early and bad timing on sales, I should be in great position. The youth squad will come along as soon as I make the switch to IM training, but I want to do that ASAP and start with at least half of them excellent PM, so figure I need to get a trainee up to Outstanding along with saving to reach that.

[Tubby Rower]

I would start dumping money into the youth squad. At least do the minimum so that it can get your starting point a little higher when you start dumping 20k in there.

[arne1]

I have been training pm since I started 4 seasons ago. If you are palnning to buy excellent pm's I assume you are buying 18 yo? As you might know, side skills like passing and/or defendeing makes your trainees more valuable.

[sz_matyas]

I'm thinking go for excellent 18 yr olds with poor/weak passing and possibly 17yr old solid with weak/inadequate passing. I figure I will be in position to spend roughly $1M when I make the switch, giving me roughly $200K on my top recruits and $125K on my lower recruits (depending on how the market is, I may get a wing to train as well or I may ignore those until I have more cash). Basically I want the 18yr olds so I have some ready cash if something were to come up otherwise 17yr olds with better passing/defense would probably be preferable.

Good call on the YS, I should be able to afford $5K/week for a season without big problems and save some hassle later.

[sz_matyas]

It's time for a change in strategy, as I had planned on being out of debt by the end of this week, but clearly will not. This is due to getting 90,000 less than maximum in revenue and about $60,000 less than expected due to my supporters going ballistic at me for losing two games I had no right winning.

Wondering if this makes sense (currently I'm ~$50K in debt with what will be a formidable 19yr old GK in 3 wks, expecting $500k from that sale):
I'm not going to be able to win the series this season and given the way that the top guy will run away with it (meaning a power team gets demoted) likely not next season either. So for now I buy the IMs I want to train, and give them 1+ levels of passing training this year. Next season I work on their PM and begin to sell them off.

Currently I have three trainees (all solid PM) who are (passing/defending) weak/weak, poor/inadequate, poor/inadequate, given the extra cash, I could then get an inadequate and two passable passing players. These when they become excellent PM, solid passing should finance new trainees and improvements elsewhere on my team.
In addition, the passing training will improve my forwards and wingers.

[Robboo]

I am planning on doing something similar. I am planning on getting my trainees up to excellent before flipping over to passing.

[sz_matyas]

The reason that I would do passing first is that the training affects my forwards (and wingers fully). Since these are moderately old players, but still young enough that they will be with the team for several seasons, I figure that I should train them before they get any older.

[bed_head7]

Training that many levels of passing is not worth it economically. At your level, you make much more money just training players in a single main skill.

[sz_matyas]

Well, I have finished purchasing my primary trainees:

A team:
quote:

Adir Buaron (146784970)
18 years, passable form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is temperamental and honest.
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities.

Speciality: Quick

Nationality: Israel
Total Skill Index (TSI): 1 260
Wage: 816 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: poor Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: inadequate
Winger: inadequate Defending: poor
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: weak

Augusto Ospina (144860269)
18 years, solid form, healthy
A popular guy who is balanced and infamous.
Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Speciality: Unpredictable

Nationality: Colombia
Total Skill Index (TSI): 1 500
Wage: 960 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 1
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: poor Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: inadequate
Winger: wretched Defending: weak
Scoring: passable Set Pieces: solid
Rainer Wick (146725714)
18 years, passable form, healthy
A controversial person who is balanced and infamous.
Has non-existent experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Speciality: Powerful

Nationality: Schweiz
Total Skill Index (TSI): 1 400
Wage: 888 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: weak Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: passable
Winger: inadequate Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: wretched

B team
quote:
Henrique Machado (133251181)
18 years, inadequate form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and upright.
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities.

Speciality: Unpredictable

Nationality: Portugal
Total Skill Index (TSI): 660
Wage: 792 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: weak Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: weak
Winger: wretched Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: weak

Robby Pinzenöhler (142070724)
18 years, passable form, healthy
A controversial person who is temperamental and righteous.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.

Nationality: Deutschland
Total Skill Index (TSI): 560
Wage: 792 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: wretched Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: poor
Winger: disastrous Defending: inadequate
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: wretched

Linus Droogstoppel (141735517)
18 years, passable form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is balanced and honest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.

Nationality: Nederland
Total Skill Index (TSI): 1 360
Wage: 888 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: poor Goalkeeping: disastrous
Playmaking: solid Passing: poor
Winger: passable Defending: inadequate
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: wretched


I'm about even in cash (depending upon the final sale of my GK who bothered to get hurt while on the market), short a backup keeper and have 3 extra IM's who I figure should bring around $75K.

The question remains whether I should save for a stadium upgrade (currently 15000 for 836 fans growing by ~25/week) or buy a couple players that dearly need upgrading if I'm going to move up a division next season. These would likely include a winger, both to upgrade and train and at least one defender as I only have 4 and none better than passable.

Right now I'm leaning towards possibly buying the players.

[Tubby Rower]

what about your coach? If you are selling out the stadium, I'd recommend upgrading your stadium to 18o0o

[Robboo]

what are you training?

[Tubby Rower]

PM it looks like

[Robboo]

thats what i was thinking too.. bu the had mentioned passing so i was wondering if he had decided.

[sz_matyas]

I'm going to train passing for ~3-4 weeks just to improve the market value of my players and then train PM. My coach is currently solid/poor, so no worries on that front and I sell out my stadium when the fans are delirious or high on life. The keeper sold for around $100,000 less than I was expecting so based on expectations, I'll have ~$550K at the end of the season to spend.

[bed_head7]

I really would advise against passing. To make the most out of short passes, you need 14-15 trainees. You don't want to bother with training poor passers at all, and for 3-4 weeks, weak passers are definitely not worth it either. Plus, if you get unlucky, you may get no more than a pop or two out of all of them in that time, since it will take about 7 weeks for an 18yo to pop.

[Kemal]

As a passing trainer myself, I have to agree with bed_head, don't train passing unless you expect pops from inadequate -&gt; passable or better. From poor to weak, there really is almost no price increase whatsoever, so I wouldn't do it if your purpose is to increase the price of your trainees.

[sz_matyas]

Sounds like a plan then, thanks for the tip

[sz_matyas]

Having purchased all of my trainees and not wanting form to plummet as I did stamina training I decided to sell off my previous midfielders. I have had all of these for just under two seasons (I purchased them all in the 2nd week I had a team) and have done no training except for two weeks of stamina each offseason.

Tino Djurhuus (58601958): Bought for $40,000 sold for $59,000 ($54K after fees)
Andres Pettai (123735218): Bought for $20,000 sold for $72,000 ($66K after fees)
Georgi Gúrkov (100080047): Bought for $20,000 sold for $51,000

Needless to say I am thrilled by this development and a bit surprised, but hey I won't complain as I am on the way to setting a record of being out of debt for two straight weeks (saving to upgrade my stadium, then basically remain solvent permanently). The downside is that I lost 2+ stars on my midfield which was my strenghth and my form is plunging with 3 weeks of stamina training left, though I will likely take a short break once a couple of them reach passable.

[sz_matyas]

A quick question about strategy:
Looking through my league plus a message I got, it looks like there will be 5 bots in my league plus whoever demotes (assuming no new teams, but they shouldn't be a major challenge). The remaining human is decent but not great and I should be able to beat him if I don't get complacent.

So: Do I move up the chain of skills in the standard fashion (trade my passable defenders for excellent, my solid wingers for formidable, etc.) or do I start buying superstars and try to fill in my team until I can compete in Div V (I'm suspecting I want in the formidable-brilliant range on most players).

I figure I'll upgrade my stadium to 18,000 next week and that won't get changed for at least a season but I'll have enough cash to buy 1 or 2 players at the end of the season depending on my strategy.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by sz_matyas
... I'm suspecting I want in the formidable-brilliant range on most players ...

At least if you want to hold on there. It varies with the exact league but formidable is the lowest reasonable. And you might want to have something decent, like attack or defense (keeper) or preferably midfield. Something around more or less evenly distributed 130-140 stars will give you a firm foothold.

[Tubby Rower]

130-140 stars or Hatstats?

[sz_matyas]

I was thinking 40 stars or 140 hatstats. I'm training midfield and my starting line should be excellent by the end of this season, meaning I shouldn't have any trouble being outstanding when I promote.

I doubt a weak team will be relegated this season, as the current league leader is perfect with a 39 goal differential and growing rapidly (he started trying to make a cup run now he's just destroying everyone). This means I can fully upgrade my team to a mid-level next season or else get about half of it up to a solid Div V team.

[sz_matyas]

It's been two complete seasons for me and I feel I should take stock of how I'm doing and plan for the future:

Fans: 1023, solid but not spectacular
Coach: solid/poor, soon to be solid/wretched
Stadium: 18,000 and selling out versus average teams
Training: PM, currently 2 excellent and 4 solid
Economics: $228K in the bank with ~even without league crowds
Hatstats: averaging 114, but realistically running at 120

Plans for coming season(s):
I figure that by the end of next season, it will be time to replace my coach and have purchased an excellent experience, inad leadership player for this purpose. Taking into account that I'll be starting to invest in my youth squad and player salaries will jump significantly due to training (skill, plus extensive stamina) profits will be low. This leaves me with a couple choices, sell trainees (I figure replacements will be expensive due to the swap of youth squads) or take it hard this season and prioritize for the future. That being said here is how I plan on spending my money until I promote to div V.

1) Buy a brilliant scorer: I plan to do that this offseason when prices are low. Based on the current market I can get poor/weak passing for ~$600K if I'm willing to give up some experience. I'll use all my assets at the end of the season and cover the debt (I hope) by selling an excellent scorer once the new season starts.

2) Coach and Youth Squad, not necessarily at this time point, but set aside the cash
3) Buy 3 new defenders at excelent+ level, currently I'm playing 3 guys with passable and this has to change if I'm going to be competitive at the next level
4) Buy a winger at excelent+ level: currently I'm playing two guys with inadequate winger, I have an excellent wing/inadequate passing/weak pm, but despite being with the team for 7 weeks has never been above wretched form
5) Upgrade the stadium: I'm currently selling out at 18K, figure this is likely to be at least season 33 before it is accomplished, but should be able to do significant renovations and still sell out
6) Upgrade my GK from formidable to outstanding (figure on 300K for this) doesn't need to be done until I'm ready to promote, but this is the easiest way to upgrade my entire defense
7) Buy a second power forward

Looking at who is likely to relegate down it is almost impossible to promote next season, but I should be running ~140+ hatstats in season 33, meaning I should promote that season as my only competition is whoever relegates (currently 4 bots, an almost bot, a guy ~1 season behind on improving his team, me, leader).

At the end of next season, I should have 6 outstanding IM's, I figure I'll train them to brilliant, sell two and think about switching training, but that's a ways off. Just thought I'd post to clarify my own thoughts and if anyone cares what my plans are.

[sz_matyas]

I am clearly dominating my bot infested league, which leads to the question: Should I promote this season?
I'm currently running in the 130s for hatstats and with training should be pushing the 140s by the end of the season. The downside is right now I have essentially no backups to my starters and I'm going to be $160K in debt after this week thanks to a very expensive yet unproductive youth academy (so far anyway).

I have ~2 weeks to decide as to avoid autopromoting, I figure I need 2 losses/draws and there are only 3 losable games left without resorting to walkovers and I want to continue training. Of those 3, 2 are to a single team and I don't want to lose to the same person twice as I still want to actually be the division winner.

Figuring I can't get as lucky as Tubby it would be tough get in position to promote right away, figured I'd get some thoughts.

[Tubby Rower]

Well the guy that won my old league the season before last was in the similar situation. He could lose his last match and move on, or lose and stay in th league one more season. He's still in div V. He's doing good. My situation was rather lucky seeing that I have 4 teams that I can beat easily (3 of which just received a new team recently). if you can get win all of your games by a handy margin and be the top ranked promotee, you could be in my league next season [:p] I also remember Mistfit was a little nervous about moving up a few seasons back. and look at him now. He's the best clown in the whole division ;)

In other words, don't be scared about div V. you'll likely do well.

[Kemal]

Got to agree with Tubby here, always take the opportunity to move up if it presents itself. Playing in a higher division vs more skilled managers/teams only makes the challenge/fun of the game bigger, imho.

[arne1]

quote:Originally posted by Kemal

Got to agree with Tubby here, always take the opportunity to move up if it presents itself. Playing in a higher division vs more skilled managers/teams only makes the challenge/fun of the game bigger, imho.
Got to agree with Kemal here, always take the opportunity to move up if it presents itself. Playing in a higher division vs more skilled managers/teams only makes the challenge/fun of the game bigger, imo.

[Kemal]

As you noticed, I always like to humbly present my advice/opinions to others.. ;)

[arne1]

it is alwas nice to meet a humble IV-manger. I wish I met one last week[sad]

[sz_matyas]

Ok, I'm starting to formulate some of my plans for next season and curious if anyone has any input. Biggest decision is that I'm going to switch to winger training to improve my team about halfway through (I'll be keeping 3 brilliant IMs). I figure with good form I'll be getting ~160 hatstats with 170-180 if I MOTS for say a cup game.

My league should be a relative cakewalk with only one potential challenging team, maybe 0 so mostly it will be planning for the following season and/or a mini cup run (3rd round hopefully). I should have ~$400K to spend in the offseason and wondering what your thoughts are, the following are items I plan on doing anyway, but don't know if there is a rush.

1) Buy an outstanding scorer, currently I have a brilliant and an excellent with no true backup, just guys who have passable but I like to play elsewhere.
2) Upgrade my stadium it has been 18000 and sold out every game but one in the rain against a bot. Just sent the order to take it to 21000 and have ~1300 fans.
3) Reup my coach, currently he is solid/wretched and only a couple weeks from disastrous have an inadequate leadership guy on my team who is ready to take the spot eventually
4) Upgrade my goalie, currently formidable, figure it's the easiest way to upgrade my whole defense at once and maybe take advantage of the down market
5) Buy a top notch wingback trainee, my defense could use some help and I need trainees anyway, so maybe get an 18yr old with good defending and decent winger (excellent/inad?, form/weak? don't really know the market) to give the team a boost there

If you have a suggestion as to what to spend the first chunk of change on or any other suggestions for gearing up for a division jump I'd be glad to here them.

[Kemal]

If the league will pose no problems next season with the curren squad but you're selling out each home game, I would go for a stadium expansion instead of new players. At the end of next season, you'll probably have made enough money again to reinforce the team then anyway, if necessary.

[arne1]

quote:Originally posted by Kemal

If the league will pose no problems next season with the curren squad but you're selling out each home game, I would go for a stadium expansion instead of new players. At the end of next season, you'll probably have made enough money again to reinforce the team then anyway, if necessary.

I strongly agree with this.

[sz_matyas]

Thanks for the advice. The reason I didn't just go with that initially is that I haven't played a game since I added 3000 seats this past week, so I don't know if I'll continue to sell out and I kind of want to make it to the 3rd round of the cup this year and figured buying a solid player might help that. Still upgrading the stadium is the one thing that helps me financially the sooner I do it, so you are right.

[sz_matyas]

Woohoo?!?!

I guess I now have a player on a national team, but I can't figure out for the life of me why. Specifically it is my current coach with stats:

quote:
Huang Sung-Joo (5604651)
42 years, weak form, healthy
A solid trainer who is defence-minded
A controversial person who is balanced and upright.
Has passable experience and wretched leadership abilities.

Speciality: Quick

Also part of Team Hong Kong!

Nationality: flag Hong Kong
Total Skill Index (TSI): 0
Wage: 600 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: hunting_penguins
Warnings: 0
Injuries: Healthy


Stamina: excellent Goalkeeping: non-existent
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: non-existent
Winger: non-existent Defending: non-existent
Scoring: non-existent Set Pieces: non-existent


Anybody ever experience anything like this before? Just curious.

[Kemal]

He must have been (one of) the only coach(es) with the nationality Hong Kong around... since each national team must have a coach too to manage the TS, they somehow noticed yours and made him coach of the national team.

Congrats on a national team flag in your squad, quite an honour.. not too many teams that can say that.

[Robboo]

Now if I am not mistaken...you cant fire the guy. If you wanted to replace your coach.

[sz_matyas]

Fortunately I decided to hold off on replacing my coach a season since it looks like I won't promote otherwise this could be annoying. As it is, I'll just tough it out I guess.

[sz_matyas]

On the bright side 3 new teams just joined my league so there is only one bot. Unfortunately they won't be good enough to compete with before I promote. Still it's always good to play against other people.

Now for the dilema: I currently have inadequate team spirit and have an opponent from div II in my upcoming match who got just short of 200 hatstats last match. He went all midfield and offense to get those, meaning that he intends to simply score a bunch of goals and hopes I can't keep up.

My thought is: given that I can PiC my league game and play basically whoever I want, do I:
1) Go all defense, PiC and Press so as to concede defeat, but limit the damage a little so my fans aren't as mad for the following home game
2) Go my standard 3-5-2, MoTs and hope for the best
3) Play a 4-4-2 counter-attack and either MoTs or normal, hoping to get a couple goals to lessen the damage while trying to prevent him from scoring too many.

The league match following the cup game is against a midfield only player who I wouldn't feel comfortable PiCing against with murderous team spirit, but I could beat unless I get really unlucky.

[romeothemonk]

You got to play to win. You always play to win.
That gives you option #2 or #3.
I personally, knowing nothing about the game advocate #2, as plan B always sounds better than plan C.

[arne1]

can I safely assume you have no experience in 4-5-1? which would be my choice if I have to play a team like this.
either counte and forget about midfield or play strong midfield so defense does not matter and since he has no defense your offense doe not matter anyhow.

[sz_matyas]

In that case I will probably go with #3, as you are right in that I have no experience in a 4-5-1 and can't really hope to match his midfield. Regardless I'll feel good about being one of the 16 lowest teams remaining in the cup (and hopefully beyond that).

[arne1]

You should be proud

[sz_matyas]

For those who are training wingers, I am planning on switching soon with the goal of improving my team (i.e. keep a couple of the trainees when I'm done and squeeze as much profit as I can from the others).

I will have ~$1.2M to invest in trainees and my wingbacks for league games are not included in this total (I plan on sacrificing that training to get better results and treat any improvements as a bonus). So I'm wondering if you have any suggestions as to how I should split up the pot and what skill levels I should target it would be appreciated. The training will go on until I'm satisfied with the level of the ones I'm keeping which will likely be around magnificent.

[sz_matyas]

Having played for just short of 4 full seasons, I am getting ready to promote to div V and figure this would be a good time to examine my team.

Economics:
Currently I am even financially and will be saving all of my remaining income this season for a new coach.
I make ~$2M a year plus any income from the YA, which I anticipate continuing (increased attendance and stadium capacity offset by higher wages, as I'm just entering the period where wages explode)

Players:
All non-trainee starters are at least Formidable (and may even have that fixed by the start of next season) with 3 Formidable (2 WB and a GK), 2 Outstanding (CD and forward) and 4 Brilliant (3 IM and a forward). Backups-GK solid, Defense 1-excellent 2-passable (only in case of an injury playing 4 defenders, and replaced before too long), IM outstanding+0.8, Forward excellent. All but 2 players are 24 and under and those two are my solid GK and my passable defender, so first to be replaced.

The largest area of deficiency is experience, as evidenced by the fact that my 3 brilliant IMs in passable/passable/solid form can achieve poor (VH) midfield on the road. I have 6 players with disastrous experience and no starter above poor. This is an excellent growth opportunity, but is pretty hard right now (that and I've only had 2 experience raises this season despite playing 4 cup matches and 10 league, ironically I've sold both players).

Set pieces is also a weak area, as I currently am playing a solid SP guy as my best, will look to upgrade that in the coming seasons.

Outlook:
I should promote and can all but lock it up this weekend (30+ GD advantage and 9pts with 3 games remaining if I win). I'm averaging 148 hatstats for the season and ~160 at the moment. Median div V team is at 162 avg. hatstats, so I'm likely going to be just below that, but hopefully good management and luck in getting a league can overcome that problem.

To promote to div IV I figure I want 220-230 hatstats (current median is 222). I've been increasing an average of 15 hatstats a year and it looks like this trend can continue for at least one more season provided I don't get hit by injuries and the form monster. Also I anticipate that I need ~$8-10M to improve my team to div IV caliber looking at current market prices. Both of these say that I should spend ~4-5 seasons in div V. Of course this is highly dependent upon what league I'm in, but with the high turnover this shouldn't add more than a season or two.

The biggest issue is the changing of the match engine and economy. With prices skyrocketing (bought my brilliant forward for under $600K just over a season ago, TC now says he is worth ~$1M) it may become harder to find the pieces I need at prices I can afford. The match engine is the big issue, I'm curious to see how my young/lean team strategy pays off with this. Making a number of massive changes at once (new income sources, new match engine, substitutions, new league for me) makes it hard for long term planning so we'll see how everything plays out.

Finally my trainees (I have some form/solid WBs that I'll play there, so only actively training the winger slot). Have very high expectations for the last two (payed $300K+ for each), so hopefully they pan out. Antoon is holding time until I have money for a better player to fill his slot.

quote:
Antoon Dewinter
TSI = 1 040 , 19 years and 4 days, passable form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: passable
Winger: solid Defending: inadequate
Scoring: wretched Set pieces: poor

Germán Adrián Ramón Grasso
TSI = 3 070 , 18 years and 85 days, solid form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: outstanding Defending: weak
Scoring: poor Set pieces: inadequate

Leroy Beerten
TSI = 870 , 17 years and 22 days, weak form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: poor Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: excellent Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate Set pieces: wretched

Zabidi bin Kamaruddin
TSI = 1 250 , 17 years and 84 days, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: solid
Winger: solid Defending: poor
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: poor

[sz_matyas]

Word of the day: Buzz saw

Basically looking for long term planning advice as I have promoted to a very difficult league (v.161).

Simply put here are what I expect to be facing
quote:
Hatstats
total D IM O total D IM O
1 265 144 78 64 237.5 124.5 57.7 55.2 FC Honky
2 227 139 54 69 192.8 100.1 37.2 55.6 Chics for Kicks
3 208 63 90 69 184.9 53.5 72.5 58.8 Mountaineers
4 203 85 66 62 175.3 66.3 56.5 52.5 LongOvrDue West United
5 196 62 63 82 182.0 59.1 53.8 69.2 green tomatoes
7 175 63 51 61 161.2 61.2 43.6 56.5 nuns on crack
1 168 116 21 32 157.2 107.2 19.4 30.5 The Fish

Here's me
quote:
1 164 65 48 56 151.0 61.1 40.3 49.6 hunting_penguins

Loddar stats are fairly comparable to hatstat ratings (i.e. no one is a wonder in a single rating type) and range from 14-24. Nuns on Crack and The Fish are both improving, but not necessarily as fast as I am, so I may or may not catch them in stats by the end of the season.

The basic question is any ideas for season plans for my team. I'll list my players and a couple of ideas I've had, but I'm definitely open to suggestions. BTW I will be ~$100K in debt with a new coach at the start of the season, so I can't buy any quick fixes.

Forwards:
quote:
Pablo Paz [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 8 710 , 22 years and 56 days, passable form
Has poor experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: brilliant Set pieces: poor

Vegar Pedersen [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 4 960 , 24 years and 84 days, passable form
Has weak experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: weak
Winger: weak Defending: poor
Scoring: outstanding Set pieces: wretched

Grady Lambert [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 1 610 , 22 years and 93 days, inadequate form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: weak Defending: wretched
Scoring: excellent Set pieces: poor


Midfielders
quote:
Augusto Ospina
TSI = 11 160 , 20 years and 105 days, inadequate form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: brilliant+3 wks Passing: inadequate
Winger: wretched Defending: weak
Scoring: passable Set pieces: solid

Rainer Wick [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 11 460 , 21 years and 11 days, passable form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: brilliant Passing: passable
Winger: inadequate Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set pieces: wretched

Robby Pinzenöhler [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 7 480 , 21 years and 23 days, weak form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: brilliant Passing: poor
Winger: disastrous Defending: inadequate
Scoring: poor Set pieces: wretched

Henrique Machado
TSI = 8 060 , 20 years and 105 days, passable form
Has wretched experience and passable leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: outstanding+0.8 Passing: weak
Winger: wretched Defending: weak
Scoring: weak Set pieces: weak



Wingers/Trainees
quote:
Leroy Beerten
TSI = 1 620 , 17 years and 46 days, passable form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: excellent+4wks Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate Set pieces: wretched

Germán Adrián Ramón Grasso [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 4 270 , 18 years and 109 days, solid form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities [Unpredictable]

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: poor
Winger: outstanding+4wks Defending: weak
Scoring: poor Set pieces: inadequate

Zabidi bin Kamaruddin
TSI = 1 630 , 17 years and 108 days, weak form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Head]

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: solid
Winger: excellent+2wks Defending: poor
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: poor

José Antonio Urruticoechea
TSI = 2 210 , 17 years and 80 days, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: solid
Winger: solid+4wks Defending: inadequate
Scoring: weak Set pieces: wretched


Wingbacks/Trainees
quote:
Balázs Gábos [1 booking accumulated]
TSI = 3 990 , 20 years and 9 days, passable form
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate Passing: wretched
Winger: solid Defending: formidable
Scoring: poor Set pieces: wretched

Vissarionas Zografos [1 booking accumulated]
TSI = 4 090 , 19 years and 109 days, passable form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Quick]

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: solid Defending: formidable
Scoring: poor Set pieces: inadequate



Central Defenders:
quote:
Carlos Eduardo Betancur [2 bookings accumulated]
TSI = 3 660 , 23 years and 102 days, inadequate form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities [Powerful]

Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: poor
Winger: poor Defending: outstanding
Scoring: weak Set pieces: poor


Rafa Barro [1 booking accumulated] [Bruised, but playing]
TSI = 2 000 , 24 years and 76 days, solid form
Has wretched experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: wretched
Winger: weak Defending: excellent
Scoring: inadequate Set pieces: weak

Shad Goetz
TSI = 660 , 27 years and 98 days, inadequate form
Has weak experience and weak leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: disastrous
Winger: inadequate Defending: passable
Scoring: weak Set pieces: inadequate


Keepers:
quote:
Alberto Mariscal [Estimated injury time: 1 weeks] 1
TSI = 6 920 , 21 years and 58 days, passable form
Has poor experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: formidable
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: wretched

Genaro Scarpini
TSI = 4 740 , 27 years and 98 days, solid form
Has wretched experience and passable leadership abilities

Stamina: solid Keeper: solid
Playmaking: disastrous Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous Set pieces: wretched


So, ideas for the next season and playing in a killer league:
1) Forget this season, try to win as many games as I can, but be willing to lose them all and relegate
2)PiC all the first half of the season, cash out Leroy and and German around week 5-7 (outstanding and magnificent), buy a couple great long term and short term players and try and pull out 2-3 victories in the 2nd half.
3)Cash out my trainees, buy 1 or 2 titanic level players and win some games this season, setting growth back 2 seasons but assuring a place in div V.

Ideas and other suggestions welcome (my cup game is against a team roughly the same as mine only on the road, so I can't plan on a long run by any means)

Edit: Some of these team names looked familiar, so I decided to do a little research. This was exactly the league that made me want to spend an extra season in div VI. Guess I was just supposed to be here. Curse your luck Tubby on getting into a league that grows with your team.

[arne1]

It all depends on what kind of coach you are getting wtih a solid leadership coach you can really pic your matches you need to win.
Try to find the opponents you need to be beating to avoid relegation and make a pic/pin /mots strategy that will help you do that. I think If you have possesion you stan good chance of winning with your strikers and wingers

[akots]

Your league does seem indeed a strong one. Usual range for Div 5 is from 160 and up to 210. So, here you have Hunky and Chics which are somewhat above that level. But other teams do not look that scary. IMO, if you make a nice accent on midfield and change coach, it is quite possible to survive. It seems that many teams in 5th and even 4th do tend to somewhat neglect the midfield and thus often face disastrous consequences.

Just try to set yourself a goal of increasing your stars by 10 per season which quite reasonable. You now have about 175-180 on a good day. To beat these current guys soundly you would need at least 220-230. This means you will be doing fine in 4-5 seasons in this league. First two seasons will be the hardest since you'll be not performing that well and might lose considerable portion of the income from the matches which will be only partially compensated with increase in supporters. but this is immanent feature of the US which is very similar to other countries in HT like England.

Your income in 6th of US is something in between 9th and 8th in Netherlands and in 5th you can really bump it up because you get to the level of 7th and 6th in Netherlands in terms of income and sponsors while being substantially weaker on average. So, IMO, 5th league is the best for growth in the US. You can certainly get there up to 210 stars while maintaining a steady cash flow. So, by all means do promote and do try to survive. It is not that hard if you emphasize midfield. You'd need eventually to get to three world class players there.

Winger training is OK but income on that is very low. And you will not be able to train in secondary spots during the cup run which even more devaluates this type of training. You would also certainly need a better keeper. This might enable you to skip on defenders. It looks like an attractive switch of training but hard to tell since the market is again in complete chaos.

Otherwise, you can try to start gradually improving your MF by buying young WC players one per season. Otherwise, if you have some spare time, it is the moment of getting involved in daytrading and it is very rewarding as well in this level judging by many examples.

[sz_matyas]

Thanks for the tips. Just for reference my coach will have inadequate leadership, so with the help of a few psychologists I can use PiC and MoTS to actually accomplish something.

As to why winger training, it was clearly my weakest position and didn't want to throw out good players just as I was promoting to get into a more lucrative field and couldn't afford higher level trainees anywhere. This is more of a 2-3 season experiment to get a couple top flight wingers for my team and now train some of my defenders in wing (all except Goetz get WB training) with the new rules coming up.

Based on this advice, does this sound like a reasonable plan:
1) Try and beat The Fish first round to the point of letting the cup slide a bit.
2) PiC the 1st half in general or until I get a couple major upgrades
3) Gain some cash from selling Leroy (outstanding 17 yr old) and German (brilliant 19 yr old) for some lower class trainees when they reach said level (around weeks 5-7)
4) Purchase a brilliant GK and a WC midfielder this season and play to beat The Fish, Nuns on Crack and maybe a hidden victory

[akots]

Brilliant keeper will not be enough. Well, it may be but an experienced one as a temporary measure. You would need some of WC or better for consistent at least 5+ stars.

Compromise between cup and league is always hard. You can try to get to stage 4 but in the US chances of that are low. So, IMHO, you suffer in the league but don't make much progress in the cup. Hopefully, your experience might be better than mine.

[sz_matyas]

Brilliant keeper isn't enough long term, but to get WC costs around $2M and I won't reach that until the very end of the season if at all. A brilliant keeper I can get for around $1.2-1.3M based on the current market. Upgrading midfield isn't so hard, because it will only cost around $300K as I can sell a brilliant player to cover a large portion of the cost.

Personally my goal in the cup is round 3, but even that may prove difficult as the most winnable game I have in league is the same week as the round 2 game.

Long term, 3-4 seasons, I figure a WC player at almost every position is the goal, but right now I'm worried about simply surviving this season without relegating.

[sz_matyas]

Basically I've got this guy
quote:
Leroy Beerten
TSI = 3 480 , 17 years and 99 days, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities

Stamina: inadequate Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: inadequate
Winger: outstanding Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate Set pieces: wretched


and wondering what I should list him for.

Any tips would be appreciated as I really don't see outstanding 17 yr old wingers on the market and don't want to get hosed.
He isn't on the U-20 team and won't be (just got beat out), so that potential revenue/marketing is gone, but otherwise looking for tips.

[akots]

Well, with new ageing system, it is not that informative about 17-yo. How many days he has left? Otherwise, he does not have passing or playmaking. So, something can be from 500K to may be 800K depending on a buyer. May be more than 800K but it should not be less than 450K IMO in any case.

[sz_matyas]

He has 13 days left (as it can be seen he is 17yrs and 99 days). A similar player with formidable winger and a week younger went for around 900K, so I was thinking maybe over $1M, but wasn't sure. He is at about the best pace he can be for training, if he had been excellent at 17 and 0 days, he would be 3 weeks ahead of this, but no more. I was hoping I could get some benefit from that fact.

[sz_matyas]

Listed him for 1.5M and he didn't sell, listed him again for $0 and he went for $1.2M.

Big thanks to Mistfit who was the only one who made more than the minimum bid (from 0 to 1.2M is a lot of minimum bids and was annoying at best)

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by sz_matyas
... and he went for $1.2M.
...

[eek]

Live and learn. The prices are definitely going up on the market.

[sz_matyas]

I might be looking for a quick piece of advice on how I should move forward with my team into the coming season.

Currently I have ~$750K with 3 home games (and potentially a qualifying match) left and am running ~165 hatstats a game. The downside is that my fans are irritated and falling fast, so I probably won't get that good of crowds.

My current team can roughly be described as:

WB: both formidable Def, Exc Wing
CD: Outstanding Def. (excellent backup)
IMs: 2 WC PM, 2 brilliant PM ~inad passing for all
Wings: 3 Form (2 with solid pass, 1 with Pass PM) trainees (1 at excellent)
Forwards: 1 Bril/WC SP, 1 Outstanding, 1 Excellent backup
GK: Formidable (and younger), Solid (28yr old)

Looking at akickku.com, I've played the 47th toughest schedule in div V and have to face the gauntlet on the return, being 1 pt ahead and a large differential behind in the autorelegation zone.

I think if I tanked the other games, I could sneak into 6th place or I could put up a solid show come in 7th and destroy div VI next season.

The question is: should I fight relegation, and then where should I spend my money (GK, stadium, forward, defense)
or should I spend my money on quality back-ups and stadium expansion so that way when I come back to div V I can be there to stay (even if it is in the hardest league to get 6th or above by hatstat that I saw in a quick check).

[akots]

IMHO, you better try to stay. First, you never know into which Div VI league you get relegated. It might be all bots and that would be quite boring. Second, you never know into which Div V league you'd be able to promote in a season if you can and it can be even more tough. Third, they are changing the rules to increase attendance in higher divisions and to decrease supporter mood fluctuations. Fourth, your league seems to have a more or less clear leader which will apparently promote, so one strong team out; you can get some bot from Div IV or a weaker team. Fifth, you are doing quite OK in general but need to enhance the midfield. Apparently, this would be hard to do with your current cash, so you might consider pic-mots fluctuation (which you appear to be doing but would need to find a nice WTM player) and might need a higher leadership coach for that but your current one is not that bad with inad leadership. Sixth, IMHO, you've got to spend more on transfer market. Now, one can make huge monies daytrading. Prices are jumping up and down and nobody can tell what might happen within a couple of week. That is only if you've got time. Your transfer record looks quite small, may be you can get some extra cash this way. Of course, somebody is gaining and somebody is losing, so it is kind of tricky stuff there and quite a gamble at times. That is all IMvHO.

[sz_matyas]

Well I think I'll follow your advice and generally cannibalize my starters for better players (i.e. sell a starter and use that plus cash on hand for a better player) even if it is a very short term strategy. Demoting to all bots it what I'm really afraid of, as that would be terribly boring. It's just frustrating as according to loddarstats, high hatstat, or average hatstat, I'm right around the 40% mark of div V (i.e. 3-4th place in an average league) and I'm getting crushed week in and week out.

Hopefully the new game engine and supporter mood calculations can work to my advantage, we'll see I guess. As far as day trading, it would be a great way to make money, but I don't have the time to implement it (though I see it happening a lot, though not in my league, thank goodness).

I'm looking for my midfield to improve in the next couple of weeks, as the two WC PMs are relatively new (1 week and brand new). I've been PiCing except for "winnable" games when I play normal. It has helped keep my team spirit near delirious so that should be a plus for my virtual elimination match in week 12. Now it's just a matter of hoping we get some teams I can beat for next season (actually the top team is currently in 2nd place, thanks in large part to a 0-0 draw with me where beat me 270-159 in hatstats, so we may not get a bot dropping down)

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by sz_matyas
... It's just frustrating as according to loddarstats, high hatstat, or average hatstat, I'm right around the 40% mark of div V (i.e. 3-4th place in an average league) and I'm getting crushed week in and week out. ...

That is quite frustrating indeed however it does seem to be the consequence of not so adequate midfield for your league. You are not playing any WTM but you can actually try to play 2 WTM provided that you can somehow organize 2 nice forwards to give you enough AIM rating to be able to score.

But also going all-out midfield is a gamble at times and does not pay off 100%. I've met and seen a few teams in Div V which had nice midfield but were not able to promote. However, they do comfortably stay in Div V and that is the major goal for you on this stage of development. So, if you can get an increase in MF it should not come at the expense of decrease in other team parameters and at present, the amount of cash you have is quite limited. I'd say it might be a time to consider changing training type or at least shifting focus.

But again, repeating myself, you are doing quite OK considering relatively short time you spend with the game and lack of free time for daytrading. It might be a good idea to be content with what you have and take it easy. The market is constantly jumping and there is little power in trying to predict what is going to happen by the end of this season.

[sz_matyas]

Through some weird twist of fate, my league is very winnable this season. There are 2 bots and 1 one new team (only 2 seasons old) and four other teams who are comparable to me. My four competitors generally have better talent but are less skillful, allowing me to have a shot. Here is my team and I'm wondering if I could get some hints to push me over the top (promotion isn't the goal so much as blocking a better team from coming down and positioning myself for 2 seasons down the road).

GK:
Alberto Mariscal: form GK, weak exp. (22.5 yr old)
Genaro Scarpini: Solid GK, wretch exp (29 yr old)

Central defense:
Berk Alagül: Brilliant D, pass wing, inad PM, form SP, inad. exp. (24.5 yr old)
Rafa Barro: Excl D,inad wing, poor PM, poor exp. (25.7 yr old)

Wingback:
Vissarionas Zografos: form D,excl wing,weak PM, wretch exp (21.0 yr old) [quick]
Balázs Gábos: form D, excl wing, inad PM,wretch exp (21.1 yr old) [powerful]
Shad Goetz: passable D, inad wing, weak exp (28.9 yr old)

Wingers (training):
Zabidi bin Kamaruddin: out+.7 wing, solid passing,poor D,weak PM (19.0 yr old) [head]
José Antonio Urruticoechea: out+.7 wing,solid passing,inad D,weak PM(18.8 yr old)
Gerhard Lallemand: out+.5wing,weak passing,inad D,inad PM(18.9 yr old)
Veli Hakula:form+.8 wing,weak passing,poor D,pass PM (18.8yr old) [powerful]

Inner Midfielders:
Mischa Freimüller: WC+.5 PM,poor pass,poor D,weak exp. (26.2 yr old) [head]
Leon Hohmeier: WC PM, inad pass,weak D,wretch exp. (26.0 yr old) [technical]
Augusto Ospina: Brill+.5 PM,inad pass,weak D, poor exp. (22.0 yr old) [unpredictable]
Rainer Wick: Brill+.1 PM,passable pass,poor D,wretch exp. (22.1 yr old) [powerful]

Forwards:
Albert-Jan Veldhuis: Magn scoring,weak pass,weak wing,poor exp. (23.6 yr old) [unpredictable]
Ferenc Hermann: Brill scoring,poor pass,poor wing,poor exp.,WC SP (22.9 yr old)
Grady Lambert: Excel scoring,inad pass,weak wing,poor exp. (23.9 yr old)

I'm broke, but I have a 17 yr old solid keeper in my YA I can promote in a week (expect to be +$400K). I can bring in ~$200K/2 weeks, plus cup, YA and sales income.

The goal is to win this season without giving up the future. I realize my backups at GK, defense and forward are fairly weak, but I can cover some of that through formations and don't have the cash to fix them all (though maybe fixing 1 or 2 is what I need to do to win). Any tips would be great as it is so cut throat near the top. On the other hand I really can't finish lower than 5th, so perhaps high risk high reward may be the way to go.

[BCLG100]

You helped me with mine so heres me attempting to help here. Other peoples advice will probably be better!

But your backup goalkeeper, i know as soon as i say this it'll happen, but how often does your keeper get injured? also with solid GK thats not going to be that much better than playing a defender in goal- you may as well sell him now before he decreases so much more in value. At the very least you'll save on wages!

Then perhaps you could sell Leon Hohmeier, with the combined cash from those two sales you could buy a younger PM still with WC PM standards but otherwise Leon will also start losing value. Or perhaps a brill PM but with a better passing skill?

You could also consider getting rid of one of your wingbacks and investing in a central defender which would make your defence better as that seems to be the weakest part of your team.

I did notice that your expanding your stadium- is that bigger than 28k or expanding too 28k?
Perhaps if you get anymore money you should invest in that, its more of a long tern plan but you'll get a lot more money in the long run. Especially next year your wingers will start becoming awesome your midfield will be very good. It does look like your main opposition will come from green tomatoes who seem slightly better than your team on the whole but im sure if you MOTS anything can happen.

Anyways thats me done talking let the more knowledgeable people advise you now!

[Aggie]

quote:Originally posted by BCLG100

It does look like your main opposition will come from green tomatoes ...I also see Chicks for Kicks as a strong team.

I think that you have a nice team and your back-ups aren't bad, considering they are back-ups. I myself have far worse back-ups than you have... (which may be the biggest issue next season).

You might want to think about replacing one of the brilliant PM's when you sell your YA keeper. Midfield remains the most important part of the team so improving that always pays...

[socralynnek]

Your squad looks good.

I haven't looked at your opponents but I guess the position where you can gain most from upgrading could be the GK.
Buy a World Class GK with some Set Pieces as well. The problem: that might be quite expensive.

I wouldn't take a risk if I were you, i.e. don't go into debt or buy a player where you can't afford the wages.

As your team looks ok, investing in the stadium might be worth it, but you can wait a few home matches with that decision.

[sz_matyas]

Thanks for the tips, some of them matched my ideas (a good thing in my mind).

Regarding my competition: Chicks for Kicks is probably the strongest team, but they rely on defense so my strategy of playing for SE goals looks decent. Green Tomatoes is a challenge as they play the same style of 3-5-2 I like only with better talent and force me to get creative (notice in my game against them I went 4-4-2 with 2 IMs and it worked). Mountaineers go overly heavy on midfield, making them a wild card as to whether they can steal all the chances and get lucky. LongOverdueWest is similar to greentomatoes, but doesn't use tactics to play against.

The hard part is we are all so balanced. If you look at old standings, 6th place was less than 3 pts from 2nd (and ahead in goal differential). This is why I say there is hope for 1st, but the real possibility of 5th.

I'm thinking that I will keep the wingbacks as I am training winger and if need be their defense is good enough to play CD. My first impressions are sell Rainer Wick (brilliant PM, pass passing) and Leon for two younger WC IMs. Longer term, I'd like to buy a magnificent CD and maybe shift Berk from CD to WB. (I always play with 2 WB for the marginal training, though occasionally towards the middle).

The radical thing I was thinking was to switch training to GK when my top wingers hit WC. They are so nice, that I don't think I could find replacements on the market or get a fair price when I sell them. The reason for GK training is I need to replace both of them and this would cause the least problem on my team regarding turnover.

Stadium: I was routinely selling out, so the reason I'm broke is I spent all my money to upgrade to a 32K seat stadium. I hope to have 2 home cup games, so this should pay off within a season or 1.5 at the most. It may get a larger upgrade later, but I want to see how the season shapes up first (though I do have just short of 2000 fans).

[akots]

With 2K fans you need 40K stadium. Otherwise, you losing income and a lot of it especially if you go for upper half of league for most of the season.

Regarding winger training, WC may be not enough to stop, I've made a similar mistake when training keepers and left mine at SN level. Should have trained more despite the wages. ATM, my top winger has mythical skill and it is certainly not enough, he barely makes it to 4th winger in the league. Well, he has weak passing, so that is understandable. If you going to switch training, then it is best to seat in this league for 2 more seasons while your top trainee gets at least to ET-Mythical skill may be and only then promote and switch training to something else. If you do continue to train wingers, you can try to promote to see into which Div 4 league to might be getting.

BTW, your last season winner has autopromoted to Div 2 and is now within top 10 teams in the US. He improved by about 40 stars from 305-310 to 350 during his crusade through quite a mediocre Div 3.