Finding my way through Hattrick

When I first thought about writing an article I thought that it should be something like: “The guide for beginners” or “How to start playing Hattrick” but I realized that I haven’t had that much experience in how to play with a new team. I’ve only tried it once (obviously because users are only allowed one team) and maybe someone else would have a very different experience when he or she started playing this game so instead I thought that this would be my experience.

Why, oh why?

The reason for me writing this article is that I have been playing for some seasons and now see myself as a “not beginner” for whatever that means. I know that I probably still have a lot to learn and that all my posts go to the Danish beginners conference even if I try to post it in another conference but I still believe that what I know now, somebody can benefit from. If you don’t agree then I’m sorry that you had to read it all to find out J

Be patient my boy!

When I first started out I think I almost bought players for all my money in the first two weeks – even though I had very little idea what to buy. Of cause I saw which positions I was weakest in and bought players for these positions. I also bought a keeper with solid in goalkeeping (which I still use). But instead of buying all these players I think it would be a good idea to choose which positions to train and buy young players for these positions. The earlier you start making a “training program” the better. Anyone you ask will say that training players are the most important money source in the game. I found this great site telling a lot about what to train and why: Training Value Analysis.

Every penny counts

When I started playing I thought that why not train defense. I’m a defense kind of guy so I my formation was 5-3-2 and then I could train more players. In theory I could have trained 10 players per week but as you probably know all my money went to other purposes so I had very few real training materials. And what happened was that the games I played ended with very few goals on both sides. I had a relatively strong defense but at the cost of middle and attach fields. So it usually ended with 0-0 or 0-1 to the other team. I could se that my team really sucked but I didn’t really have a plan. I just knew that I should have no more that 22 players (plus trainer) because you can’t train more than that every week. Another thing I did was to set my youth training to 5.000 euro a week which I could only do for 3 weeks before I realized that I didn’t have money enough. That was 15.000 out of the window and in the beginning every penny counts. I started to try my luck in day trading but I had very little luck (mostly because I had no money to trade with) and one time I had more players than I could pay salary to so I actually went below zero for 4 weeks. Also in the beginning there are very few people coming to the matches so the first season a home match was worth less than 20.000 euro and I had to pay 7.100 per week just for stadium maintenance.

Changing strategy

When I finished my first season in VIII I ended up getting the third place. This was not entirely my doing but mostly that the former manager had been playing quite well and even though taking over the team meant loosing more matches then winning, I still had enough points to stay at the third place. This meant that I got 40.000 euro, which did fall on a dry place (is this adage also in English?). Anyway, the first week of the new season I bought the new trainer but I kept training defense. Suddenly in week 10 one of my defenders advances from solid to excellent. This meant that he suddenly was worth about 200.000 euro. I could also see that he was too good for my team and if I sold him I could exchange some of my worse players with better ones. I think this was a wise decision because I desperately needed young players. At this time I had seen what most of the other teams in the higher leagues was playing, the formation 3-5-2 and I thought that now was a good time to change strategy so I went from training defense to training playmaking. Of cause I only bought one young player because I also wanted to get better players on other positions. I should probably have been a little more focused on getting 3-4 young players to train but it is much more fun to see you actually win some matches then always doing the right thing which benefits in the long run. Another strategy was to get rid of the “dead meat” which was all the players I had from the beginning and that was worth nothing and that I only had kept as a lack of better players. It is vital to train as much players as possible and that means playing two matches every week and I haven’t missed one yet! It also means that you have to have at least 22 players because it is not healthy to let a player play two times a week. That was why I hadn’t fired or sold them earlier.

Training the young ones

In the end of second season I had enough money to start training youth squad again. This meant 5.000 euro the last 5 weeks of that season. At the moment I’m paying 10.000 euro and considers raising it to 20.000 euro because my youth squad is passable. I have trained them for 1 season and 5 weeks and I still haven’t drawn any good players from my youth squad. That means that I have spent 140.000 euro and only sold one player for 1.000 euro which was not even enough to pay the transfer fee. There are many opinions whether or not it is profitable to invest in youth squad at all. My opinion, hmm I hope it is – at least it makes every Sunday a little more enjoyable. Maybe you win the lottery next week…

A dream comes true

When I started at my third season (28^th season) my goal was to advance to the next league which at that point seemed as a reasonable goal to have considering the fact that the team’s TSI had doubled since I started and I still hadn’t advanced. I know that TSI doesn’t say much about the specific player but starting at a TSI at about 12.000 for the team to have about 22.000 at the beginning of the third season shows that there have been quite a few improvements since the start. I actually made a press announcement that I wanted to advance specially because the cup match against a 2 league higher rated team was only determined in overtime by penalty competition. I unfortunately lost. But I still believed that I could win my league. I had a lot of easy matches in the beginning and all the hard matches was in the middle. More precisely 6 matches against the 3 highest rated teams. I did hire some more physiotherapists to massage the sore muscles of the players. I played the top team and made one draw and one lose. The second top team I somehow won both matches, the last one I won with 5 to nil. When looking at the ratings for that team it was better than mine so I have no idea how I could win so big. I have one explanation that because I played 3-5-2 and I got more chances than him playing 4-4-2 but that still can’t be the whole explanation. In the end of the season I became first place and this meant that I had a boost at 10% for fans, 40.000 for victory or promotion and 60.000 for the obtained position.

Hiring a trainer

In the beginning of second season (27^th season) I bought a new external trainer, which was inadequate both in training and leadership. I paid 41.200 euro which I later was told was a bad investment. Instead I should have bought a trainer with passable in training and poor in leadership, which would have cost me 79.600 euro, almost the double prize but a much better investment. At the time of writing I still have this trainer starting with my forth season but I’m just waiting for a little more money to buy a trainer with solid/poor. As I mentioned earlier the most important money source is training players.

Also I want to buy even more young players to fill up my middle field and eventually when the new ones gets high enough ratings I will sell the older ones, move the young ones to the first team and start training even more at my second team. Generally the strategy for this season is to stay in the league, build up a solid team and win my first cup match!

Thank you for reading this! Please comment on it at my Hattrick guest book. Below you’ll see my team information.

My team

If you want to find me in Hattrich my team name is: Givoni United (571804). Givoni is my last name and NO, it is NOT Italian. If you really want to know: I have relatives coming from Israel. I would be more that happy if you wrote something in my guest book, so feel free to write anything you like – eh maybe not ANYTHING ;-) – you can still be the first one to write!!