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Interview with HomerJ69, winner of OPC X

Written by Asthfghl

HomerJ69 won the jubilee edition of the Omani Prediction Contest, a traditional competition of match predictions featuring lots of managers from all around the world. This time the OPC was very closely contested, and HomerJ69 emerged the winner with 130 points. He earned a friendly with Assim, and a lot of glory. And he deserves to be put into the spotlight now!

Interview taken on 30.12.2010.

Link: (http://leeukop.livejournal.com/309866.html)

1. Hello HomerJ69! First off, congrats for winning the OPC10 contest! This is an amazing achievement, given the fact it was your debut in the competition. How did you hear about OPC? And what's your impression of this contest overall, and how do you like your opponents?

Hello to everybody. Thanks, indeed it is amazing to win this great competition, although it was not the first participation. For the first time I joined the OPC8 with medium success after hearing about the contest in another federation by good fortune. I immediately liked it because of the more ingenious point system compared to other prediction contests. Furthermore it can help you to improve your play understanding for HT altogether. I have got to know most of my opponents as always competent, reliable and friendly. The atmosphere is very pleasant and a very big interest is to be lead back of it absolutely on your great work.

2. This success in your first participation is sure to cause some noble envy. Do you have a secret strategy when predicting the matches? Any system that helps you give the best possible forecasts?

As told in A1. it was not my debut, but of course I guess there is some noble envy and that point is showing the high value of this competition. The strategy to predict the games is first to look at the former matches of the teams to get an idea how the ratings will be. Additionally it is helpful to look at set pieces strength, injured players, red cards, fast players and headers. After considering all these items well and if you also have a good portion of luck you will be successful in the long term. Do not forget sometimes just one little goal can separate between success and failure. More detailed info about my strategy I will keep back, because I am trying to defend the crown in OPC11 ;)

3. The Omani Prediction Contest is a nice thing, but ultimately, it's all about Oman and its community. Do you have some observations about the Omani HT community, and Oman on HT? What about the Omani national team?

Admittedly I do not follow the Omani HT community too closely, but I know that it is a small, but capable community. I will try to get more impressions of it in the future. Of course I always cross my fingers for the Omani national team. Mostly I am confronted with it within the scope of the OPC. The predictions for the national team are always to be done for me hardest.

4. There [were] ongoing elections for a NT coach, and we have a new coach as DrMoose stepped down. What would you advise the new coach about the management of the Omani national team? There are World Cup qualifications going on, after all. Got some idea how Oman could improve?

First I would like to congratulate Betrem for being elected for this great task. I am sure he will do a nice job as already shown at the WC qualification match against Colombia. My information about the Omani national team is not good enough to give Betrem advises. I would only like to tell him that in the long term, it is his most important task to select the most talented young Omani players as early as possible and to coordinate the best possible training for them to get the needed abilities to improve the Omani national team.

5. Naturally, the attention you'd be getting now would also include your team. Could you share your hopes and plans for your team's future development? Where would you like to see your club in the near future, and further on?

Of course I see my team at the head of the HT world, what otherwise. To be serious, I have climbed up just in the 4th German league and I can say that the higher you come the more difficult it becomes to coordinate the strength of your team with the financial possibilities. If you find a way to substitute always the older players against younger players with comparable skills I guess there will be a big chance to climb higher and to stay there with the right mixture of skill and luck. The most important thing for me is to have fun with HT and you can also have fun in a lower division. Maybe my biggest mistake I made in HT so far is to climb up always too fast, without having a respectable finance bolster, because I am too impatient to slow down.

6. Do you have some particular tactics that you prefer when playing your club matches? What types of training do you favour the most, and why? And what about your youth academy - is it of great significance for your team?

The tactics playing in my club matches are reading my opponent and working out always the best possible line up like a chess or poker player does. Some managers are always playing with the same line up. They could be much stronger with the same team by varying their line ups.

I started with training playmaking till the salaries of my trainees went to my financial limit. Then I have changed to passing to build some technical defensive forwards. I guess everyone here knows the history that happened with them. Their skills have been “killed”, which meant a deep decrease of my finances for one or two seasons. I tried to compensate by skill trading of 17 year old players in passing. It worked some time but suddenly the benefits became lower and I changed to scoring. Now I am back with playmaking to rejuvenate my inner midfield players. The difficulty is to form the training in such a way that also the A-team profits of it without letting rise the salaries in the extended one. This becomes more difficult in the advanced leagues because the skill requirements of the players become higher and higher.

I have started with the youth academy just one season ago. The old youth system was very frustrating to me. Now I soon hope to be able to harvest the first fruits from it. At the moment the youth academy is still of subordinate importance for me, but later I hope to be able to mend the one or other financial gap, of course.

7. Spending so much time around Oman might've helped you understand this country a little better. What's your impression of Oman as a country? Do you like to travel, and would you visit Oman some day if a chance comes by?

Oman is a very hot country with many sun hours, culture treasures and a capital Muscat with worth seeing oriental palaces. It would be attractive for us Europeans to visit Oman in the winter time, when the temperatures are not as hot as in the other seasons. Maybe there will be a great opportunity for me to visit Oman at the WC 2022 in Dawlat Qatar. I heard about the idea that there will also be some WC matches in the neighbouring countries, I hope also in Oman. This would be perfect.

8. And lastly, please tell us some more about yourself. What do you do, what's your hometown like, do you have some fave occupations, and of course, favourite football teams? Do you watch football live?

My name in real life is Thomas and I am living in a small and lovely town in South Germany. My age is 44 and I am married with an Ethiopian wife. We have two wonderful children: A five year old boy and a three year old daughter. I studied economics at the University of Konstanz. Now I am working as contract manager in a big drugstore company. I am a passionate chess and poker player, I go fishing with pleasure and enjoy visiting foreign countries. My favourite football team is VfB Stuttgart. This season my team is not so successful being 17th in the German Bundesliga in the moment and trying not to fall in the 2nd division after this season. Usually I watch in average between 5 and 8 home matches of the VfB every season and additionally I visit all Champions league matches in Stuttgart if there are some. Thanks for the interview.