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Diamonds are forever

Written by Romanian_Cracka

And it's not necessarily a euphemism, in Hattrick the statement is pretty much correct too, isn't it?
Winning the Supporter Week Trophy in fact guarantees you that, but how many of us have what it takes to go for it? Probably not many given the results of the previous editions. Some would say you have to be a top team to win it and they might just be right.
The rules of this tournament leave you less control over your tactical approach, the team spirit and team confidence values are the same for each and every one of us so the strength of the team is crucial. You can't play match of the season when you need it, you can't get your team confidence boosted after a win, you just need to have a very strong and complete team.

So here we are, chatting with a manager that has been quite successful so far in this competition, culminating with his victory a few weeks ago in the finals. We're talking about one of the most respected Italian users, scricciolo (9475869).

1. Let's get to know scricciolo better. Tell us who scricciolo is in real life, how he discovered HT and what were his first steps after joining ''the Hattrick aficionados club''.

I'm a 39 years old engineer.
I discovered this game thanks to some friends, as well as many other users probably did. In my particular case it was a friend of mine that back then has just got his team and was very impressed by it. He managed to convince me to join in and, after a while, the true devoted one happened to be me. In the meantime he abandoned the game.
In the beginnings I did some really noob stuff as I suppose a lot of us did, but, to be honest, I very much appreciated one of the first advices I got from the old DAP (the nowadays AP) – the questions section in Italian conference: "Read the manual!".

It took me maybe a week, taking it step by step and some parts at a time, but I immediately understood that the game wasn't as easy as it previously seemed. To be perfectly honest, as soon as I started to understand the game and its mechanisms better, I understood that it was in fact the vice versa: it's an easier game than the one you think it is when you're at your first steps.

2. Given your triumph in this tournament and the road that got you there, what do you think of The Supporter Week Trophy(2108472)?
Are there any aspects in its actual structure that you think might be reconsidered or simply improved?

Already from the first edition I thought it was an interesting and fun idea, given that you have the opportunity to face opponents from every corner of the HT world.
Add to this the fact that it gives you something more real than the glory of winning some matches, the worthy to fight for Supporter, and it's, as I said, an interesting and fun idea the developers came up with.

But it has as a flaw as far as I'm concerned... Only the strongest teams, the top teams, can fight having decent chances of winning the trophy. All the other teams can only hope to be lucky enough to end up when it's all over standing on one of the positions multiple of 1000, or win some credits.
It would be a great thing, if you ask me, if it can be found a more meritocratic way in which any well built up team, maybe considering the series levels too, for example, can fight with more realistic chances when it comes to winning some Supporter packages.

3. What were your hopes before the tournament actually started? Did you think you could win it?

In all the previous editions of the Supporter Week Trophy I happened to have a team of a certain level, but consider it a paradox if you will, this time I was a little worse than before, especially due to the rather low form status of some of my players.
Anyway, in this tournament I've always been lucky, managing each time to qualify in the first 64 teams and, thanks to this, to the final rounds.
Fact is, in the first season, I went all the way to the final, which I unfortunately lost and it's been quite upsetting, especially because I had fair chances of winning it.

4. Which were the toughest, maybe the more complicated matches you played this season in the Supporter Week Trophy? Has there been any games in which your opponent surprised you in a way, tactically speaking?

The opponent that surprised me the most was a German user, which in this match (9278219) put all his hopes in the chances distribution in his favour, completely ignoring his defending on the sides and going for a maximized midfield rating.

I played several complicated and balanced matches in terms of odds. Winning some of them and getting further it's been a really boosted by luck adventure.

Very difficult was the Italian derby (9311704) played against a Serie A colleague. Given that we played several seasons against each other in the league, we both knew very well the features, ratings, strengths and weaknesses of the teams. We both made some rather unusual tactical choices that led to a match that could've ended with any result. The dices were on my side in this match.

But probably the most difficult match was the finals (9314454), which I had to approach with my best technical defensive forward being suspended. In order to cancel this disadvantage I had to take some risks. I anticipated correctly the asymmetrical approach of my opponent with lots of individual orders given to players with the purpose of reinforcing his midfield ratings, so I also choosed an asymmetrical lineup, hoping to get the right decisions when it comes to the sides to defend and attack.
All this without ignoring to attack viciously the opponent's central defence.

5. Did you buy some players for the Supporter Week Trophy and if so, how come? Were you maybe trying to improve a certain section where you thought the team was weaker than it should?

When the tournament started, I wouldn't have bet a lot of money on myself when it comes to getting into the first 64 teams qualified for the final rounds, but I played as well as I could with the players I had.
After managing to qualify for those rounds I had a particularly bad form update in some specific departments.
Long story short, I had my third inner midfielder option in weak form (4) and the two wingbacks in weak (4) and inadequate (5) form.
Given the rather advanced phase of the tournament I didn't want to stop fighting so I've bought two players, which were useful in this season too anyway:
- an inner midfielder (346613591),
- a wingback (319444839).

After I bought these players my new wingback was way more helpful than the other two I already had, so this made me play many of the matches from the last rounds with an asymmetrical defence, playing with only one wingback and most of the times 253, but even 352 with two central defenders.

6. Is the Diamond for life useful to you? What do you think of the prizes given at the end of this tournament?

The first prize is, without any doubt, a desirable one, especially for those who want to have a second team.
I personally have been a Supporter for a lot of time, Supporter Gold for what it's worth, but seen the last upgrade of the prices I decided to not renew my Supporter anymore.
Then this tournament became something real and, given that I wanted to participate, I payed for one month of Supporter when it began. As I previously mentioned, in the first season I got to play the final, winning Supporter Diamond for a year.
A friend of mine in Hattrick said that I invented the Supporter trading. :)

7. You're one of the most respected managers in Italy, you've won several important trophies with your club. Could you tell us which one of them means more to you, maybe has a more sentimental value to you?
When would you say your team reached its peak in terms of results and performances?

Well, you can't forget your first trophy, so the Italian Serie A I won during the 54th season tastes better. I was coming from four consecutive promotions and at my first appearance in the italian top league I managed to win it.
Every Saturday I fully lived the live matches and everything around them, because the Serie A was something new for me, the maximum challenge. The match that decided everything was in the 12th round, (456634960), played MOTS vs. MOTS.

A special place is kept by the second league title I won as well, because it came when I have already lost all hopes. Season 59... the same season, I won the National Cup, too.
I did everything in my power to win the cup, (541431954), and here I was before the last round's matches with two points behind the first team in the league (the Orda of Zagor (1043287)), having to play it away.
My only option was to win it. So I had to play a CA match in which I wasn't the best in terms of odds and chances, but even so I managed to win it 2-1, (528640804), adding the second league title to my previous achievement.

The third time I won the Seria A it's been a rather anticipated win, with several rounds left to be played so the feeling wasn't so intense as it has previously been.

8. Right now, are you considering the scenario in which you should be a bot to gain more power?
If so, when would you say it should happen? What do you think of these cycles used by some top teams in order to come back as strong as before?
Do you think there is something that could be improved from this point of view by the developers?

I have never yet considered this option, if you mean ignoring the team's results for a while in order to gain strictly financially.
Every season I've always set as a goal to win, from the XIth league I started from to the Serie A.
That doesn't mean it couldn't happen sooner or later, especially because keeping a team at the highest levels requires a lot of attention to the details as well. And sometimes the job, family and in other words, RL aspects leaves a limited amount of time to dedicate to HT.
This idea we're talking about, these cycles, I have to admit I don't really like and approve, but it might just happen that when a team has reached a certain level this could be the best possible solution.
After all, this whole process gives the chance to other teams to aim the highest leagues and this, overall, I think it works in the benefit of the game per se.
Managing not to go through these stages is right now my biggest and most important challenge.

9. Which is the key to success in Hattrick? What should an ordinary manager do in order to achieve similar results as you have, and what should they do to be able to put up a team as strong as yours?

I don't think there are certain right ways to do all that. Every one of us follows his own path and I can tell you about mine.
When I started, I would have never imagined I could end up in the Serie A and even more win important trophies, but in all sorts of games I like the challenges so I wanted to test myself and see how far I can go.

I paid a lot of attention to the financial status of my team when I started to climb to the top.
Also, every training slot on my team when playing friendlies, I saw as an opportunity to gain more training and I tried to take advantage of every aspect of the game that could help me improve the financial status of my club. I especially used skill trading to do all that, considering even the osmosis and the additional time of the friendlies. I use to set my team in order to increase the odds of a 0-0 result after the 90 minutes, in friendlies.
At the same time, as my finances were going up, I changed my ex players with stronger new ones until I created a group of young potential National Team players to train in the long run, which I kept for myself and helped me win my first Serie A trophy.

10. Which do you think are the strengths of Hattrick?

Hattrick is one of the few online manager games I play, so I can't come up with a fair comparison.
Without any doubt the community is one of the core points of the game, even if as time went by the upgrade of the prices of the Supporter packages hit the exact place where the game was developing, the federations...
With that being said, there is something I would change, I would give free access to a federation to every user, even if non-supporter. I think on the long run it would be a wise decision for everyone, the developers included.

11. We're at the end of the interview now, scricciolo. Is there something one of the best HT managers would like to tell our HP readers from all around the world?

If you're reading all this you probably have the same passion for this little game as I do, so no slogan... just a simple "HAVE FUN". :)