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Hattrick Season 71

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Eastheath
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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#221177

Postby Eastheath » May 13th, 2019, 6:02 am

Have maintained my record of losing to the teams above me (funny that)....
Lost 3-0 away to the team in second, they had 10 chances to our zero, they stay in second and we stay in 4th.
Next week, we are at home to first. Not expecting any change from that one either!

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#221214

Postby UncleIan » May 13th, 2019, 9:00 am

Oooh, the match report looks all different! Oooh, the other matches in the league across the top, like it, and many other things about it. And we seem to have numbers as well as percentages, interesting, I suppose it makes sense as that's what you see when you set the match up. They were probably there all along but anyway, a general like from me. Well, that said, I don't like the shift from descriptive ratings to numbers, it's a bit clinical, but I'll lump it.

So, yes, right, this week we were at home to a monster midfield with an awful attack. 3-5-2 CA it was. I thought I wouldn't have that much of the ball, though I noticed their best midfielder was suspended. So the prediction was something like 43%, but in the end I got 49% in the first half, and 50% in the second. In the first half we managed to bang in a couple unanswered, and in the second half added another, for a 3-0 final score. Chances were 7-6, but my average defence was 13 while his attack was 4.75. My opponent has only scored 11 goals this season, and has 9 points in 5th. Did I mention their attack was awful?

Elsewhere in the league the leaders chalked up a 4-0 win, so we're both now on 24 points, and he's got a goal difference +9 better than mine. I guess when we next meet a draw just won't do. Currently we would both promote if that were possible! Third also won, they're back on 18 points. First and I are both playing third at home, and we go away to them on the last day of the season, but that's a distance away still.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#221263

Postby Bink333 » May 13th, 2019, 11:56 am

Q2 of the World Cup was a really tough ask. We faced the 2nd highest ratings in R1 from Iran, then were MoTsed by Luxembourg (and we were unlucky not to win) and then on Friday we faced Austria who posted the highest hatstats of anyone in Q2. Tough gig, and although it didn't help that I didn't set PIC/CA orders against Austria, they could easily have gone more attacking if chasing the game and the odds were very much against us. In the end they converted 1 of 2 penalty shouts, and we had 2xCA chances, one on our weak flank attack and a free kick we didn't convert. We also had corner to anyone SE .

I had set up very defensive but with some useful looking indirect set pieces stats. We had 13.75 defence and 11 attack, compared to Austria's 10.75def and 8.25att. I figured that in their efforts to build a team of heavy hatstats ratings they wouldn't be too focused on the skills that help indirects, so this was a deliberate play. I've not mentioned it much on the forums, because there's no need to advertise this particular angle, especially as it didn't pay any dividends this time.

It was a very long wait to be dealt such a harsh hand, and I'm quite looking forward to getting back to dishing Caps out and some xp to the younger age groups.

Back at club level, I was facing the England U20 manager this week, and he was messing about with a new defensive formation, so we only lost 0-2. I'd switch to a week of wing training, as a +1 to a PNF trainee with the best wing skill of the group provided an opportunity for the ithers to get closer without the injured player falling further behind the best of the group in PM.

In Oceania, in 3rd away to 2nd we managed a 2-2 draw. We scored two in the first 33 minutes, and conceded 2 in the last 33 minutes. The 2nd of those was a tired defender making a mistake SE. Roll on the rise to 10% next season.... The draw leaves us in 3rd, 9pts off the leader and 6pts ahead of 5th with 5 to play. As with last season, I'm now considering a strategy to get a playoff for the xp gain....

In South Africa we faced a bot team, and won 0-10. It was the first time one of the bots was beaten by more than 9 this season, helped by 3 SE chances (all converted - unpred , wing to anyone and corner to anyone). Next week I'll be able to convert my injured forward into an excellent coach, not sure which day exactly, whether before training or not... (checks diary). I bought him on a Monday, so theoretically I can convert him on the Tuesday 21st. This means that this is the last week of SP training, when my ex-YA GK will pop to formidable SP, under the current passable coach.

I've also discovered a very useful new CHPP approved tool this week. I strongly recommend that you register:-

https://mercattrick.com/users/login

It helps find players you might want to buy on the transfer market within some very helpful input parameters. We are just entering the part of the season when prices seem to move in favour of the buyer, so I hope you Lemons find it useful?

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#221481

Postby Donut102 » May 14th, 2019, 8:55 am

11-0 win against a bot. I'm unbeaten in 1st place, and promotion on track.

Given such an easy week, I've been looking hard at the new match report. I've focused only on my lost Cup game in week 4, so this is far from a representative sample - but it is making me question some of the perceived wisdom on the "Unwritten Manual".

With the new match report it is much clearer to see how goals are scored. In that Cup game I lost 5-1 to a CA tactic, which at the time I thought was harsh. My predictor had me losing 3-2, so where did my predictor go wrong?

There is a formula in the unwritten manual that calculates CA chances. If you assume opponent has 5 x Titanic Defenders all with Titanic Passing, then the most you can covert into CA chances is about 27%. But my opponent only had 4 at the back, and only achieved Magnificent CA rating, so it should have been less than 27%.
With 9 missed chances, I was expecting they would score 2 or 3 - they actually scored 4 from CA, meaning that CA conversion must be at least 40%.

The second element is the chance of conversion on a normal attack. I've always used the formula (ATT^3.5)/((ATT^3.5)+(DEF^3.5)) to calculate % chance of conversion. In that Cup game, this gave my Central attack a 42% chance of scoring - but the new match report has it at 39%. To get the same result as the match report I need to increase the 3.5 factor to 4.6.

When I combine a lower chance of scoring, with increased CA conversion its easy to get to the 5-1 actual scoreline. But I had based my tactics on getting 3-2 and maybe getting lucky with stamina and taking the game to extra time. I would have chosen different tactics had I thought it was going to be 5-1: for example I set a central defender man marking their IM, which in hindsight was a mistake as it actually strengthened their CA ability.

So... the new match report gives more clarity on what is actually happening in games, and it will change our understanding. I don't have the time, or patience to do a proper analysis, but I'll certainly be tracking forums for new research.

Cheers
Donut

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#221502

Postby UncleIan » May 14th, 2019, 10:05 am

Donut102 wrote:When I combine a lower chance of scoring, with increased CA conversion its easy to get to the 5-1 actual scoreline. But I had based my tactics on getting 3-2 and maybe getting lucky with stamina and taking the game to extra time. I would have chosen different tactics had I thought it was going to be 5-1: for example I set a central defender man marking their IM, which in hindsight was a mistake as it actually strengthened their CA ability.


I guess that makes sense, your CD marking their IM might knock back their midfield a bit, but also knocks back your defence, meaning if they do get a CA, it's more likely to be converted.

Donut102 wrote:So... the new match report gives more clarity on what is actually happening in games, and it will change our understanding. I don't have the time, or patience to do a proper analysis, but I'll certainly be tracking forums for new research.


You made me go back and look at Sunday's match. We played a 3-5-2 CA, and under the old ratios my Def v their Attack was 75:25 on average, but this new chances percentage had it at 98%/2% on average. So that's saying they'd have needed roughly 50 chances to get one goal? Yeah, no wonder they didn't score. :) Also flicked through the timeline and it was no wonder I didn't get any CA chances at all, as we had a shade more possession most of the time, that "switches off" CA doesn't it?

Interesting stuff!

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#223085

Postby UncleIan » May 20th, 2019, 8:54 am

Week 10, and the Albumen were away to 4th place. I had a good hard look at the stats, and decided I definitely couldn't PIC, and a standard 3-5-2 was the order of the day, they decided to go 3-4-3 CA, an interesting choice, as my attack ratings aren't that shabby, and their defence ratings, especially with only three at the back, were nothing to write home about. We missed a couple of chances early doors, and they scored, of course, with a counter attack, we fairly quickly equalised with a free kick. 1-1 half time score. Second half and we banged another couple of goals in, unanswered, for a 1-3 final score. Only fly in the ointment was a +1 to my ex-U20 England goalie, his replacement has level 6 (passable) keeper, luckily he only had 10 minutes to play. Chances were 4-6, and the stats show it was a fair result I'd say.

First nearly banana-skinned away to 7th, squeezing past them 2-3, chances 6-6, but the stats suggest that should have been much more decisive.

So we're still locked together on 27 points now, and they have +8 goal difference on us. 3rd lost away so is back on 18.

Our run ins are

W11
Me v 8th
7th v 1st

W12
6th v Me
1st v 3rd

W13
Me v 3rd
5th v 1st

W14
1st v Me

So it looks like I have the slightly easier run in, but, of course, they have the big bonus of home advantage for the final game. I only beat them 1-0 at the start of the season, so it's looking particularly tricky for me to get anything out of that last match, but that won't stop me from trying!

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#223094

Postby Donut102 » May 20th, 2019, 9:46 am

I had a straight forward match against the 5th place team. We'd won all previous 7 games against this team, averaging 4-1.
So I set the team up to bring on 3 poor players for experience training if we were winning by more than 2.
We got to 3-0 very quickly (16th minute) and I knew that the 3 subs wouldn't be banging in the goals, but was confident we would hold on for the win.

All going to plan - we scored another 2, and they got 2 back, leaving it 5-2 in minute 60. Then I got a knock to a IM, and I had used up all my subs. A nervy last half hour, but we came out winners 6-4.

Leaves me unbeaten on 30 points. Next week I play 2nd on 25 points. I wont make the same mistake of using all 3 of my subs by the 16th minute this time round...

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#223658

Postby Bink333 » May 22nd, 2019, 1:11 pm

Friendly for England, I quite enjoy having the freedom to pick players from the different age groups between now and the end of season for experience, and adding to formation xp is the only constraint I have to worry about.

My English team was away to 1st. Lost 7-0 but the downer was a career ending injury to my home grown solid leadership 40 something. He had passable xp and only needed a few more xp points to pop to solid, and to become worth something on the TL.

So I sacked him in in disgust and spent £2.2m on an ET GK with brilliant xp and solid leadership. It's quite difficult to buy usable GK that are this close to a target valuation for 32-34 y/o solid leadership players (valuation is £1m for formid xp - increasing by @£0.5m per level of xp - although this gets skewed (by affordability constraints) at higher levels of xp so I'd be wary of trying it on players with SN leadership+ as you might lose some loquidity).

It seems like an interesting way to increase the value of players in non-training positions, and this week (week 11) is usually one of the best for finding bargains (not just solid leadership ones). From what I can see, when they introduced 'reserves' for funds above £10m the richer end of the user base responded by tying up value in solid leadership future coaches, and this seems to be where prices have settled for the moment.

Of course if you get older players (36+) you run risks of losing value with long term injury (which happened to me at the start of this season, and I ended up losing money at a time when I'm trying to accumulate resources, but it was a valuable lesson.

____

In Oceania, I was in 3rd at home to 5th. I've sdecided to aim for a playoff again, as the leaders are too far up the road, and went with a CA that was underweight in defence vs expected attack ratings (and with only a brilliant CA rating - this might be of interest given the earlier posts) At kick off their attacks were 37/53/47% and they had 76% possession. The new ratings showing conversion % 12/56/37 in attack.

We opened with a normal goal down the left wing. They bagged one on the right and a pen to lead 1-2 at half time. We had 3 CA chances in the 2nd half. 2 were missed up the middle (sides were stronger for us) and one free-kick (converted), but they also converted through the middle to win 2-3. 4 chances to us, in all and 9 to them. (4 on their weaker left side failed) They converted 1 of 3 in the middle and 1 of 1 on the right .

The result leaves us in 3rd and they are still 5th, but just 3pts behind us. I'm away to 4th this week, 5th are away to the leaders and 6th are away to 8th.
_____

In South Africa I was at home to the leader (another English manager with 2nd team in SA) and their bus parked in front of goal. I spent £38k on a magical set piece taker, with excellent def/wing/sc just in case we could find an edge there after 5 weeks of SP training. We couldn't. They pressed and it ended 0-0. We're 3rd, and 2nd went bot this morning leaving just 3 (of 6 at the start of the season) active managers left. Looks like we'll be on the hunt for a new series again next season.

Yesterday my mythical xp injured forward had been at the club 16 weeks exactly, and was converted into an excellent coach, as I switch to GK training for 2 seasons for my home-grown and a solid leadership Nigerian unpredictable 19y/o with excellent def and passable passing, he'll turn a tidy profit at some point.

This leaves me with £700k in the bank, and I'm weighing up another stadium upgrade (after nearly filling 26k at home to the leaders - the only spare seats were under roof, and/or some stronger players.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#224176

Postby Eastheath » May 24th, 2019, 10:30 am

At home to the league leader, expecting no change whatsoever.
The hope was that our 4-3-3 CA would get some joy against their all out 2-5-3. They always attack on the wings, so we strengthened there, at the expense of central defence. So what did they do. They attacked down the middle. After 3 minutes we were 0-1 down, so that was going with expectations.

Come half time and we were 3-1 up, and after 47 minutes it was 4-1. Huh? An unpredicatable special event, a counter attatck and two normal left wing attacks gave us the four goals. It wasn't going to last - a special event, a penalty and then a late equaliser brought them back to 4-4 and thats how it finished.

The point keeps us in fourth on 16pts, and the next game is away to the team in 5th, who are on 15 pts. We could do with an away win here, otherwise we are dropping into the qualifier zone.

Our Utopian striker was also sold after the game, as we need funds to replace some ageing defenders and midfielders. We still have two magical and one titanic striker, so I'm not too concerned about firepower - hope those words dont come back to bite me!

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#224891

Postby UncleIan » May 28th, 2019, 9:14 am

This week we were mostly being bent over by the match engine.

We were at home to 8th. A clear PIC opportunity. Though reflecting on it now, he's down to weak leadership, so maybe not really worth it. Anyway, we did, and maybe that was our undoing? They had been switching between different formations, 2-5-3 and 4-3-3 recently, both ways I definitely had the edge in midfield, and though their central attack was handy, their side attacks weren't. So a 2-5-3 PIC for me.

I tuned in after the first half, we had 59% possession, or 74% chance of a chance in midfield, they trumped my central defence with their attack, but their wing attack, even though I had no wing backs, was 73/27 and 83/17. My attack v their defence was averaging out at 50/50. We had missed three chances, and they had scored one of their two with a wing attack....still second half to go, only 0-1 down, we'll find our scoring boots and be away, that's what should happen with those stats, plain as day....they scored another from the left, and missed one from the left (you remember, where the stats said the chance ratio was 73/27 in my favour), and one down the middle. We had no more reported chances. Final score, 0-3. Chances were 4-6 - Eh? With me having 59% possession?
We. Woz. Robbed.

Okay, okay, I know, I know, that's what chance is all about, every dog has its day, and even a 5% chance happens once in a while.

Fans are fuming, five ripped up their season tickets in disgust, and more to come no doubt. Confidence is completely shot.

Now we're three points and -15 goal diff behind the leaders who waltzed to a 1-5 away win against seventh, that's how it's supposed to go! That's very very probably that then, winning the league is very unlikely, and now I'm suddenly looking over my shoulder to see I'm only six points ahead of third and +4 goal diff, with three games to go, we are at home to them week 13. Though to be honest, between 2nd and 3rd, the season's fixtures I prefer from 3rd place, so if that did come to pass, and it's looking certainly more likely than it did this time last week, it's not the end of the world.

Remaining fixtures:

W12
7th v Me
1st v 3rd

W13
Me v 3rd
4th v 1st

W14
1st v Me
3rd v 8th

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#225062

Postby Eastheath » May 28th, 2019, 8:50 pm

the next game is away to the team in 5th, who are on 15 pts. We could do with an away win here, otherwise we are dropping into the qualifier zone

Despite selling our top striker, we still managed to edge the game 1-2, edged the midfield 49/51, got the chances 3-7, and all in all nabbed the necessary points.
Next game is home to 6th, a win here could put us 7 pts ahead of 5th with two games to go - safety! Haven't had that for a few seasons.
e

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#225279

Postby Bink333 » May 29th, 2019, 3:29 pm

Not much to report on the England NT front, although doing this post reminded me that I needed to accept a friendly challenge for this week.

I'd held back from selecting players from the current age groups until the Cup Final was over, and last night it was won by a team training our 4 best normal IMs based in the Prem (but focused on the Cup - great for xp).
__________

In England, one of my expensive trainees decided this was a good week to bag a brace, taking us to 6 goals scored for the season. We were 2-2 for a time, but lost 2-7 to the team now top of the table. I'd like to say that the 2 goals was something to get exc ited about, indicating an end to the darkness of low stramina training, but the trainees have another 10 seasons before they get to the NT, 160 weeks is just over 3 years, so until 2022...

The reason we got 2 goals had more to do with our opponent 'underestimating the opponent' because they were top 2 with decent confidence levels, and we were bottom. I seem to remember something similar knocking my Prem ambitions off track a few seasons back. Thats the sort of swings and roundabouts I get, lose a Prem game to knock the title challenge for 6, and in exchange, several seasons later, score 2 goals in Div IV, en route to auto-relegation.

Mustn't grumble. Pulled a double solid wing/pm (no spec) age 17/0 today, so hopefully the weekend buyers will get their wallets out.
___________

In Oceania, I set up with the same naff CA 4-4-2 set up as I'd used the previous week. I was in 3rd away to 4th, and lost 4-0. We swapped places and I'm 3pts ahead of 5th and 6pts ahead of 6th (and 7pts ahead of 7th so have to bear that in mind as well). 6th drew away to 8th this week, and 5th lost 5-4 to the leaders (and are at home to 2nd this week).
___________

In South Africa, I was playing the team who started the same time as me in a different division at the start of last season. It was 4th vs 3rd. I decided to buy a Tanzanian wb cum fwd for £233k and he managed to score a goal past their team bus, and my magical SP taker signed the previous week also managed to bend one in through the drivers nearside window to ensure we won 1-2. That's the closest game the two of us have had. I'm still pondering another stadium upgrade, and today pulled a double passable scoring/passing 17/3 year old who is the first ex YA player to be transfer listed. My home grown GK popped to excellent in his first week of training and the 2nd GK popped to inadequate, and could pop again this week if his sub-level is a bit higher than I've assumed.

We hold onto 3rd, 7pts off the leader and now 4pts ahead of 4th.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#226395

Postby Donut102 » June 3rd, 2019, 8:49 am

Not much to say here. I've won the last two league games, and sit in 1st place on 36 points, 10 points ahead to 2nd.
With two games to go, the title is already in the bag.
Oh....those last two games are against bots :D
Autopromotion and division IV await - and finally I feel ready for the next league.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#226396

Postby UncleIan » June 3rd, 2019, 8:52 am

After last weeks debacle we had what on paper looked like an easy peasy game away to 7th, but I had the fear, we had to bounce back, had to, no PICs for me this week, what's the point? No need to build up TS for the last match when you can't overtake your rival and win the league. They are a fairly balanced side, 7th, but their attack is terrible. Went with a standard 3-5-2. Chances ratio in midfield was 40:60%, but their attack v my defence was 15:85%. They shouldn't score, but last week was haunting me a bit.

Unsurprisingly, with low confidence comes missed chances, but we still managed to score three times in the first half, second half we missed three or four chances, final score 0-3. Phew! Chances were 1-9.

Cemented second place, three points and -16 goals behind first. First beat third 5-1, so now third are nine points behind with two games left. First are in an auto-promotion slot, and would still be even if they lost, in fact, if I was in 1st, with my current points I'd be auto-promoting!

Remaining fixtures:
Me v 3rd
1st v me.

I tell you what though, my shock defeat last week set the cat amongst the pigeons at the other end of the table, just four points separate 5th to 8th, and actually 4th are only two points ahead of 5th. Next week the bottom four all play each other.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#226431

Postby Eastheath » June 3rd, 2019, 10:22 am

So, we were in 4th, and at home to 6th and another 3 pts would make me feel more comfortable with respect to avoiding a qualifier.
It didnt start well, they scored first after 12 mins, but having got the edge in midfield 57:43 I anticipated our chances would come.
By half time we were 2-1 up, and then in 10 crazy minutes early in the second half we scored four more times, and the game ended 6-1, our best of the season. Our best for many seasons come to think of it....
To make things even better, the team in 5th lost, so we stay in 4th on 22pts and 5th has 15 pts - we are therefore safe with two games to go.
Our last two games are away to 1st then home to 8th, 1st will win regardless of what I do and 8th cant improve their lot, so I have taken the opportunity to sell two older midfielders and get younger (maybe even better) versions of the same, and will do the same with a defender, in prep for next season.
Nice to be in this position for a change.
e

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#226855

Postby Donut102 » June 4th, 2019, 3:16 pm

Well I've bitten the bullet and opened a 2nd team up in England.
It's taken 3 RL years to get my first team competitive, and I suspect it will be the same for this one.
Not sure how I'll deal with 2 teams, but its worth a go.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#228248

Postby UncleIan » June 10th, 2019, 9:31 am

Penultimate game of the season, and we were at home to third place, a pretty meaningless fixture for both of us, well, unless there was some sort of travesty and first slipped up away to fourth. Pride and having the spare time precludes me from just chucking in a quick match order and moving on...I had a look and I reckoned I'd be losing midfield, and my wingers would have the run of the place. Thinking simplistically we lined up in a 3-5-2 AOW with my wingbacks set TM and my wingers offensive. They countered with a 3-5-2 AIM with their WB defensive and a winger TM and a striker defensive. Possession at kickoff was 50/50. We were both divine at our tactic. As the first half rolled on it was clear neither of us had got the scoring boots on, we both missed three chances, trouble is they had a fourth chance which they didn't miss, halftime score 0-1. In the second half they made a sub which took my possession up from 52% to 60%, not long after we had a good couple of minutes and scored twice. An exchange of missed chances and an injury to one of their strikers and that was that. 2-1 to the Albumen. Huzzah! Chances were 6-8, so I reckon that's a, well, not a lucky win, but a good win in a game that could have gone either way really.

Meanwhile first won 0-4, so we're three points and 19 goals behind. All I have to do in the last game is beat them 0-10 then! ;)
They are on 36 points, and the first team below the auto-promotion line are on 32 points (we're on 33!), so that means they're going up, unless they throw the match. Talking of throwing the match, not that I've probably got much say in it, but am I right in thinking that in theory the team with the best record in IV replaces the team with the worst record in III? So in theory I should let them win heavily, and take the hit of all the fans leaving for two weeks, in order to potentially get a bot/rebuilder come down? A quick look at the other IV and III leagues suggests there's 7-8 teams with better points/diff at the moment in IV, and 6-7 teams that are bots or have scored almost or no points. I suppose the only thing it will do it make the first and last games easier, in theory, but in the long run that'll just give 7 teams 6 points, and not make any real difference. Trying to engineer things usually backfires in someway anyway.

Next week I'll just try and set up to score at least a goal and not get too humiliated.

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#228482

Postby Eastheath » June 10th, 2019, 7:22 pm

Surprise of all surprises (not), we lost away to the league leaders 5-0, whose last game will be away to the team in second, one point behind them. I guess that's the excitement in our league at least.
Our last game is at home against already relegated 8th. Will try to win it, if only to finish with a bang. However, we've sold off some oldies, and will only replenish if/when I find something suitable before the new season starts. We may therefore be a little weakened for the next game....

So we will finish in 4th. Last two seasons we finished 6th on 9pts (qualifier) then 5th on 14 pts (qualifier) and now it will be 4th on 22-25pts.
Sounds like progress to me. I hope we can keep this trend up!

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#228733

Postby Bink333 » June 11th, 2019, 4:13 pm

Missed doing an update last week, with a trip to the Isle of Wight disrupting my normal routines, but you didn't miss much...

The England team has been rotating younger age groups in from my spreadsheets of players. I thought I'd rebuild some 3-4-3 xp, as it serves as a good threat/insurance against teams who CA predictably, even if actually using it leaves you open to losing midfield. As I'm calling and dropping players TS is shot to bits, and winning m/f is not really going to be happening at the moment.

We lost 1-3 to Hungary using the 28-29y/o but last week managed a win over Senegal using the 26-27y/o. The 24-25y/o have Germany this week, who at least are ruining their TS as badly as we are.
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My English club, in 8th was playing 7th a week last Sunday. It was the day I promoted a 17/0 support player passable PM/Pass and inad def. I decided to play him (and keep him for the moment) in a training position in central midfield. We lost 8-1 and I then decided to sell the Tunisian PNF trainee to make room for the home-grown. I paid £369k for him just under 3 seasons ago and sold him for £2.9m. It was a cash injection the team needs to keep building if I'm going to buy in a team to complement the forwards I'm training. The U20's have bypassed my trainees, failing to reach Q2, and giving xp to the next batch of Q1 hopefuls. This is good, as I didn't really want to increase stamina anyway. This week we lost 5-0 and cement our place in V again. I'll see if there's a space for me in my old series when I get there...

Cash now up to £8.5m with 2xsolid £2m leadership players training xp in the squad.
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In Oceania, my crap CA approach won 1-0 against the bottom placed club, to put me 6pts clear of 5th with 2 to play. I opted for a stronger CA this week against the league leaders. We picked up a red to an IMTW on 23, after injuring one of theirs and lost 2-1. That leaves us 5pts ahead of 5th and 4pts behind 3rd, so the final game is just a training session.

Cash now £9.9m with another £2.8m in reserves.
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In South Africa we won 4-1 and 8-1 over the last fortnight which puts us 3rd, 4pts behind the ownerless team in 2nd and 7pts ahead of the team in 4th that moved to this series with us after last season. We are ranked as the #1 Div IV league in South Africa, which is an indicator of how quiet IV is over there. My 26k stadium pretty much sold out for the 3rd game running, so that's something I'll be throwing more money at before the first home game of next season. I'd like to buy a couple of players as well, but only African born, and only with decent set pieces and PM (as a secondary).

Cash now £900k - spend it wisely...

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Re: Hattrick Season 71

#229130

Postby Donut102 » June 13th, 2019, 9:24 am

The set up of my 2nd HT team is now pretty much complete.
I chose England again as a base. Its a difficult country to win anything due to the experience and number of users, and that kinda appeals in a masochistic way.
I've bought 8 new trainees for PM training. You don't get a lot of choice with just £190k to start with, but I managed to get specs on all them. One acquisition is a Support player - more to see how that spec will work in the new match engine. Little is known on the support spec as you need high main skill and high experience for them to be effective, but if trained right he could have a high resale value.
I also kept two of the base players for training. Both 18 with specs.

I've considered making it a Long Shot team - but ultimately rejected that idea as it sounds really dull.

Hired 2 x lvl 5 trainers, and a lvl 5 medic.

Still got the Passable trainer that comes as standard. Cost of a Soild/ Inadequate is £410k. After the trainee purchases I've got £115k left in the bank.
I'm guaranteed a 2nd place in VI, which will net me £267k, so expecting to be able to upgrade to the Solid coach early next season.
Also acquired 2 future coaches with Solid leadership (weak & poor experience respectively) for EXP training. The team also came with 2 x Solid leadership players who are being retained for EXP training as well.
Worst case then is that in 8 seasons I'll have a homegrown Excellent Coach.

YA started, but it will of course be at least a season before that will bear any fruit. Any good prospects will replace the newly acquired trainees, which will free up cash to potentially purchase a high experience player to be made into a Excellent coach.

Reality though is at least 8 seasons of grind before the team is any way competitive - by which time my first team will be coming to the end of their cycle and returning to the build phase.

Not touched the stadium yet. I'm adding about 40 fans per week, so the stadium expansion will come quickly enough next season.


Lessons Learnt

When I reflect back on the set up of my first team, I've done a few things differently:
- Specs on all new trainees
- Less worrried about starting skills on the trainees due to speed of training
- Gone straight to level 5 trainers

Any other thoughts I should consider?


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