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An interview with Chris! The Irish National Team Coach

Written by HT-Tasos

Wow! Ireland is in the next round. And what is better from an interview with the NT Coach, chris20474 (4117192)

"So we were already sitting around and drinking beer two hours prior to kick off and my team scored the opening goal when I had to pay one of several visits to the toilet. At least I had someone to shout for me :)"

Dantekavala: Could you please introduce yourself?

Chris: My real name is (surprise!) Chris and the numbers alongside are my birthday... I'll probably be 40 once this is published. I leave in Munich, Germany since 2002 (because of my job and my wife). I'm not a fan of big cities actually but you can't plan everything in life :)

Dantekavala: Tell us about your teams. What is the inspiration for your team names? And how did you learn about Hattrick?

Chris: My first team Red Scouse Power FC obviously identifies me as a Liverpool supporter. I fell in love with the club at the end of the 90s when I was living in Liverpool for a few months as an exchange student... impossible to not get addicted to football there, the whole city lives football.

I have always been a supporter of my hometown club Karlsruher SC and finding a team name was a tough decision, but I thought that having a "Liverpool team" would be a bit more special in Germany... only to find out there are lots of just as well :D

No interesting stories behind my second team name, the fact aside that I've been to Ireland on several occasions and Galway simply is a beautiful city.

Dantekavala: Hattrick is a social game. Tell us about your best HT friend and your most bitter HT rival.

Chris: That's a difficult one. I know a lot of HT people in person by now, as I tend to organise regular meetings here in Munich and I've also visited a few of the annual HT Germany meetings. I've met a few very nice people through HT and I've also convinced some of my RL friends to join the game, so I simply can't pick a single manager. Plus I've met lots of nice people outside of Germany who I don't know in person but enjoy chatting to.

HT is a game and games should be fun so there's no place for bitterness in here as far as I'm concerned :)

Dantekavala: How do you deal with your plan? Training, trading or just hoarded money from the past (for both your teams)?

Chris: My first team has been going through a few different periods already since 2006. First it was "normal" gaming and I promoted from X to VI, but I already noticed that in a big country such as Germany titles are won with a) a lot of money or b) an awful lot of patience... and so I decided to do some skilltrading and then go for the cup - which I won in season 41 (April 2010, (269612013))! That was fun, I can tell you :)

Afterwards I needed a few seasons to recover financially, had a few issues with the game engine like so many people do at times and then decided to concentrate and training some of my youth players. I'm still doing that, but I also am in the process and climbing up the leagues again and hopefully this time I'll be patient enough to make it to the top... it's my major target left now.

My second team is about training Irish youngsters and I have a few promising ones around... hopefully some of them will make the national team in the future but that's a long way to go.

Dantekavala: In your opinion any manager with a money bag and good hattrick knowledge can "win" the game?

Chris: If that means winning the highest league or the cup then yes, why not? Money alone is not enough as plenty of mistakes are waiting to be made, but if you have the knowledge as well of course you can. But even if you have both of them you will need to have a good relationship with lady luck because you will win absolutely nothing otherwise ;)

Dantekavala: Why did you choose Ireland for your second team? Are you connected to it somehow (RL or HT)?

Chris: That was an easy choice as I

a) had a soft spot for Ireland as long as I remember, for various reasons (music, landscapes, people, drinking culture :D)
b) wanted to play in a much smaller nation than Germany anyway
c) didn't want to challenge for the place with all those flaghunters (that aspect of the game can be bizarre at time if you ask me)

I also knew a few nice Irish managers (fellow Liverpool supporters) which made the decision a bit more easy but that's only a side note I reckon.

Dantekavala: You are the NT Coach of Ireland and you had a great success in the Qualification matches. Tell us about this period? How did you feel?

Chris: I can tell you that I was very nervous when the first game kicked off... being NT manager is so much more responsibility than managing your own team as it means so much to a lot of people. Being down 2-0 in my first competitive game as NT manager was horrible but going on to win 3-2 was brilliant :) (467484041)

I thought we'd only had an outside chance of qualifying but things went our way in a lot of close games and we were topping the group soon and with a decent TS as well... and its much more easy to play from the top than chasing things.

The decisive game for qualification then probably was victory in Sweden (467484083)... we knew we needed 4 points from our last two games and it was either playing MOTS in Sweden and then taking on South Korea with low TS or playing a PIC CA in Sweden and then MOTS against South Korea in our last game.

It was probably the toughest decision of my HT career, but in the end all worked out perfectly for us (including a Korean MOTS which meant that we had the higher TS in the last game).

Dantekavala: Did you have other users to help you until now with the NT?

Chris: I have to mention my predecessor Strategist here who has helped a lot during the first weeks (and is still doing so), and a few other users have also helped here and there.

It's important to have some helping hands around (managing NTs offers so many opportunities to make mistakes :D) and I hope the scouting system we now have in place will help a lot more in the future.

Dantekavala: Do you want to share with us your views about the next round of the World Cup? What do you think about the group and do you hope that we could even win the Cup with the current national team?

Chris: I think our group is surprising one as it includes three rather small HT countries with Brunei, Chinese Taipei and Ireland. Poland will probably be favourites to go through but the second place should be achievable for everybody else. Those will be interesting games for sure and I'm really looking forward to it.

Winning the World Cup would be nothing short of a miracle. I don't even dare to dream about it ;)

Dantekavala: How do you see HT in the future? Are there any feature you would like to have developed?

Chris: I'm really worried about the HT future to be honest. A lot of users have left the game and supporter prices have reached a level where many people who were willing to support the game just leave or play for free.

The game itself could be fun for decades to come, but I'm really worried about the social side of HT. Federations for example will suffer a lot if more supporters leave - not the big ones, but the smaller ones who bring together people from the same region or with the same taste of music - and if that side of the game suffers it could end up with a vicious circle that kills the game.

Let's hope it doesn't get that far.

Dantekavala: Pick one HT-related personal anecdote and tell us about it.

Chris: I probably have to go for my cup final again... not because of the game itself but because of the event it turned out to be.

A friend of mine who leaves 300 km away (he also played HT at the time but has stopped by now) came around to visit me and we had combined that with a concert of one of our favourite bands. That visit had been planned months ago... and in the end it turned out to be on the cup final day just as well.

So we were already sitting around and drinking beer two hours prior to kick off and my team scored the opening goal when I had to pay one of several visits to the toilet. At least I had someone to shout for me :)

After the game (269612013) we had to leave in a hurry, otherwise we would have missed too much of the concert. It was a great day and a great night and I lost count of all those beers I had to be honest... and still I'll never forget it, I guess :)