Another New Team: Hunting Penguins

[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.