442CA is the new 352

Last season, Chile won the World Cup. In itself, this is remarkable enough for a medium/small HT country. To make it more special, though, they've played most of their WC games 442CA. In the WC final they beat Switzerland with 1-5 (484403483), not surprisingly playing 442CA.

Introduction

From the moment I started to play Hattrick (in 2005) till today, I’ve read thousands of times in the forums that midfield is king. This might be because we are still influenced by the Norwegian All-out-Attack shock win against Hattrick inventors Sweden, in the WC final of 2004: (14287675). Even back in 2004 it was already well known that midfield was very important. But for the first time in HT-history, it was shown (in a very important match) that defense ratings didn’t really matter as long as you win midfield and attack. From that moment onwards, almost all of us have tried to win midfield and attack (in that order). And only if we couldn’t win midfield, we might try to play CA and hope for the best.

Of course, in recent HT-history there’ve been teams that have played CA, but not many of them have had succes. I remember a successful CA-team like HELPUSA, who even wrote a HT-Press article about his extreme-CA tactic (14931), called “The usual way is not the best way!”, but he was little more than a screamer in the dessert. And now he plays in V anyway. Torn_, from Spain, made a bigger impact on me. He played 442CA (with some possession) regularly in the Spanish first division back in 2008. For example: (177484563). But, to be honest, this was when his best days were long gone already.


Lucky?

Back to the Chilean 442CA: in order to find out more about its success, I’ve opened several threads, asking opinions about this new system. In one of them (in the Spanish question forum) I received over 250 answers (16637599.1), although most of them just were an ugly fight between envious Spanish and proud Chilean users.

Many arguments against the use of the Chilean 442CA can be resumed in one sentence: Chile was lucky, extremely lucky. And if they manage to win the next WC as well, playing all games 442CA, than they are even more lucky. This argument is based on the fact that with the current match engine, based on probabilities, even with very inferior ratings and tactics it’s possible to win a match. And with even more luck, being inferior, it’s possible to win the WC as well. Give enough monkeys enough typewriters and enough time, and eventually, by pure luck, they will write the combined works of Shakespeare.

Others critics have pointed out that playing CA with possession is nothing new. As I showed before, many teams have done it with success. But as far as I know, no other team has used it as a base formation and has gained the amount of success that Chile got. What Chile has done is completely different from playing the occasional CA and hope for the best. They’ve used it confidently, knowing that they were very hard to beat this way. It’s the first team that used another formation than one with 5 midfielders to win most of their games.

So, maybe they were lucky and maybe the Chilean 442CA might not be anything new… but will their succes change the game? Is it no longer a no-brainer to play 352 and try to win midfield? Let’s see why 442CA could be the new 352!


The facts:

- The 442 formation with 2 strong wing attacks has the obvious and logic advantage over other formations in that it doesn’t receive any penalty for overcrowding in defense, midfield or attack. Especially compared with 253, it gains a lot of rating because of lack of penalties. Playing 253, you don’t only receive a penalty for playing with 3 inner midfielders, but also for playing with 3 attackers.

- Playing counter attack (not just 442, but any formation) is easier than in the past. For example: I remembered that in order to get a decent chance to win an extreme counter game, as a golden rule, your defense ratings (in all 3 zones) had to double the attack ratings of the opponent. But when you analyse Chilean matches, you see that they manage to stop attacks that are almost as good as their defense. This is because in the past the confidence effect wasn’t reflected correctly in the ratings, so the attack was better than it seemed. When this bug was repaired, attack ratings got higher, but this was just presentational. The result of this correction is that in order to get a decent chance to score a goal against the same defense as in the past, now you need higher attack ratings. And the other way round (seen from a Chilean perspective): you don’t need as high defense ratings as in the past to be successful playing CA.

- But that’s not all: Chilean defense may have looked just one or two levels better than the average attack of its opponents, but in reality it was a bit better than that. Chilean side defense was divine (high) with some extra sublevels, which are not reflected in any simulation tool (like HTEV).

- Chile doesn’t play the extreme counter attack, but one with some possession (around 30 to 40%). This means it doesn’t rely entirely on counters, but also gets occasional normal chances as well as possession dependent special events.

- It’s less tricky to play pic with 442CA, because if you lose possession with more difference than you thought on beforehand (because your opponent surprised you with playing MOTS, for example), you can still hope for a favorable extreme CA-match. But if you play 352 (or worse, 253) and get surprised by a higher midfield of your opponent, you’re screwed.


Club level:

So, taking all facts into account, will 442CA be the next 352 on club level? I am not sure:

- As NT-experts Artod and Mastercyb have pointed out, Chilean NT-training goals include higher main skills all across the board for inner midfielders and defenders. Artod: “The inner midfielder towards wing with 18/12/10/10 pm/winger/passing/defense is an all-rounder and not really a specialized player. Wingers are more or less standard, same for forwards. The double 17 pm-wing wingers that in many countries are used as normal wingers or inner midfielder towards wing are notoriously absent. Normal forwards do have a slightly higher than usual winger.”
In other words: it seems that behind the succes of the Chilean 442CA, there is a lot of extra training on main skills. Would it be possible to get the same amount of succes with less monoskilled players? That’s hard to say, but if Chile would be a club, than it would struggle with steep salaries. That’s for sure.

- Another problem playing 442CA on club level is more obvious: you can’t maximise training on almost any main skill. If you chose to train scoring, defense or playmaking playing 442, you have to sacrifice a training slot. Only training wing will give you the chance to train a main skill playing 442 without sacrificing training.

- Also, as Artod has pointed out: “I do not think that a CA line-up can become the new standard, for the simple reason that using CA increases the variance in results and the dominant teams want to reduce variance (to reduce the frequency of unlucky losses), not increase it.” In other words, if you play CA, the variance increases because you have to throw the dice more often. Not only do you need the opponent to fail his chance, but you also need to be rewarded with a counter attack.

- And last but not least, as especially Chilean users point out again and again: their success is not just about the right tactic at the right time. Behind the gold medal, a lot of commitment by the community is hidden. This started with Tranoso. He was the former "father" of the Chilean NT. As he was about to leave, he started the first NT school project (14147673.1) which was followed by similar projects like contests (14551714.1) and courses (15781530.1). This way, the many Chilean users got hooked by their NT and gained enough knowledge to train good players and think about good tactics. For example, TituladoBugnosSchool, their first gold manager (WC Trinidad and Tobago in 2012), was involved first as a participant and then leading some courses as he became the Chilean coach. Also, Frano_Battousai, actual gold winner, formed part of this staff.

As you can see, the involvement of the Chilean community is an important part of their success. Most other small and medium-small countries tend to rely on one or two good managers leading their NT project, which isn't sustainable on the longer term. In other words: if you decide to play 442CA, don’t expect to win the Masters next season. To be successful you need not only the right tactic, but a lot more than that: knowledge, good trainings plans, commitment, etc.

All that said and done, I would like to end with the words of NT-expert Mastercyb: “When AoA came into picture, people didn´t take it seriously. I think the same is happening with the Chilean 442, at least for now. Many teams are set up more or less the same, but a different approach can become the new ultimate tactic in Hattrick.”

Thanks to Mastercyb, Artod and Regia5 for their expert opinions. We've discussed this system in the federation 442 is the new 352 (114155), which was created specially for this article, but which will be open for everybody from now on.

Thanks to AClozada for his research on the Chilean NT history and thanks to Mod-Kirjakas for his help by setting up this article. In this article I’ve used arguments out of forum discussions that are not mine. So, thanks everybody who discussed this 442 formation and by doing so helped me to give shape to this article!

Btw: At this moment the next WC has started in Andorra and Chile has lost 2 of their first 4 matches. They didn’t play 442CA in any of those…



Editors note: do you want to discuss the article? You can do it here: (16666957.1)

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