Perhaps It’s Time For a Do-over?

Hello fellow addicts. I am shiraz_81 manager of the team known as “Jeg har Aben” (Translated to English from Danish that is “I Have Got the Monkey”). I’d tell you why I named the team this but you will have to wait on this as I got something else on my heart.

I have been playing Hattrick for almost 10 seasons now, and therefore I feel like reflecting on my progress (or lack of it). So now you get story of my failures and triumphs and perhaps where my team is moving.

My failures?

As most newbies I have made my share of mistakes. Perhaps I even made more than most. I see teams that have started more recently going on to higher divisions while I see my own team stuck in the same division for more than 7 seasons. So I ask myself “WHAT WENT WRONG”? For the curious reader I will tell you what went wrong.

As a newbie I knew training was necessary and therefore I stayed away from training general. Instead I started training stamina for half a season – not a great idea! Meanwhile I bought players where I thought I needed reinforcements and I did pretty well in the league coming in 2^nd. Next season I came in 3rd and finally in my third season I moved up to division V.80. However, I never made any REAL money. I bought and sold some players, some were young some were older and so forth. And here comes my first real flaw. I thought that after fielding the same players both in the Sunday’s league and in the Wednesday’s cup/friendly that they would receive double training. So for way too many seasons I never trained more than 3 players a week and I was not enlightened until my 3rd season! At the time I was training playmaking but I have done the same thing with defending and scoring.

My second mistake was that I never optimised my formation with regards to my training. So for a while I played 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 even though I was training strikers.
My third mistake was that I never trained long-term – meaning that I never trained a main skill for more than one season. My reasoning for this was that I believed in having a balanced team, where all the players were more or less equally good (or bad). However, one day I was talking to some fellow geeks and it dawned on me that long-term formation based training would pave the road to success (I know you YPGE freaks all think that skilltrading is the only road, but it is not!). I embarked on training playmakers and I have done so since (only straying with a single season of goalkeeping for the heck of it).

My fourth mistake was holding on to the same passable/poor trainer for a REALLY long time and not until I was promoted did I hire 9 assistant trainers. God damn it, I am a moron. The list of mistakes list could go on and on and on and on and on but I will spare you my inferior mistakes.

My triumphs?
As I said before I have always believed that a balanced team is the unsurpassed road to follow (e.g. I never liked teams who only have really good playmakers and the rest of the team sucks). As I have trained many skills in my past my team has always scored acceptable ratings all over the pitch and this has always given me the opportunity to cover my ass everywhere on the pitch. This is probably the only thing that I did spot on in my first many seasons.
I always proudly tell my friends that “I Have Got the Monkey” has never been relegated, and my strategy of having a balanced team has always been the weapon against relegation. Well that is me being a hell of strategist.

Another thing that is moving more according to plan is my long-term training and “I have got the Monkey” is making money and is developing valuable players.

What now?
Dear readers, by now, you are probably thinking “Damn this guy sucks!” and “I wonder what this idiot will do next?” So here are some of my plans:
First of all I am going for a midfield that would make Mourinho ashamed of his
Chelsea side. My plan is to have at least two extra-terrestrial playmakers and one titanic packed with sideskills. I will sell some world class and supernatural playmakers and buy a titanic winger and a supernatural defender due to my overall strategy of having a balanced team.
My dream is to be an established 3rd division team and one fine day win the cup tournament. This is all far down the road but I am sure I can do it.

I will be back and tell my faithful readers (if I have any) of my progress (if any occurs). Do not worry I will be back before my 20th season, with more stories about “I Have Got the Monkey”. So until then my faithful reader: Happy readings and I hope you do not make the same mistakes as I did.

Shiraz_81