May 2010 - New article setup

In an updated setup of the now monthly articles, there will be a critical view on the effects of the new rules for this season for club teams. The broader availability of tactics would reward strategic line-ups more than only great players. But how does this actually affect club teams? Today, the remainder of the Article will be filled with an update of the leagues, the Cup, and the National Teams. In the future, a new part of the Articles will be a Team Review, in which a young and not yet so highly ranked team will be analyzed – what does the team have to change to find his way to the top, and what are its strengths already, compared to other new teams? In later editions, you will also find other new items as well, such as Interviews with famous local or international Hattrick-users, in which they will explain their key to success, and give their view on the game More to be announced in next Article.

As you could read in the Introduction already, this season will know totally different articles. The reason to do so is that the old Articles got pretty boring after a while, to write and also to read I suspect. Further, since all the information in the Articles could be found in the league tables anyway, there was little added value in the articles.

The new way in which the articles are set up are supposed to address a much wider variation of subjects, so that the Articles will stay interesting to read. These articles are not only meant as time-consuming read, it may also help you generate new ideas of how to manage your club team. To keep it interesting the read, the articles will appear approximately once per month – of course also because the new ways of articles asks for more research and thus will take much more time to write.


Changes in the match engine – what does it mean to me as club manager?

First topic in this Article will be a part in which we discuss a key element of the Hattrick rules, and in this case the change of the Hattrick Rules. Last season, Hattrick made big announcements of the rules. This time, the way of going from the visible match ratings to the match results and generation of chances would remain unchanged, but the way in which the match ratings were calculated would change. In the world of the National Teams, this was the biggest change in a long, long time, as it stated that it would no longer be possible to use more than 3 central players in a match. For club teams, this issue was pretty irrelevant, since using more than 3 central players equaled losing training and thus losing the major source of income. However, National Teams do not have any effect on club training, and thus most teams used 4 or even 5 midfielders in a match to boost the midfield. The way of managing a National Team would change completely due to that rule.

But as said, that did not affect the club teams. And I can very well imagine when you now review your season, you haven’t altered your way of managing your team at all – so were the changes in the rules not so significant then? I think they actually were quite significant, but the effects are yet to be discovered.

A major issue in the long editorials were the statements that midfield would get less important, as was said on the majority of the Forums. The midfield rating would get lower, thus affecting the way you should line your team up. But did the midfield get less important? I don’t think so. There are still only two ways of creating chances: (1) getting normal chances via possession and thus midfield, or (2) creating ‘chances’ via Special Events (thus due to Specialities of players). Since their proportions were not announced to change, the midfield is still equally important as before. Yes, the midfield ratings lowered, but it does not make the midfield less important.

So how come the issue was raised that midfield would get less important? The message from which this diverged was by lowering the dominance of the 3-5-2 strategy and promoting other line-ups as well. The way in which this has been done is mainly one element: The more central players you use, the lower the contribution of not only the added central player, but also of the other players on that position. That means it is less rewarding to use 3 central players, and you can get pretty close to those central players by using one central player less. This penalty holds for defenders, forwards and obviously midfielders, although the penalty is the highest for midfielders. That means that the midfield itself does not get less important, but putting focus on the midfield in the line-up gets less important – note the difference here: the battle for midfield is still important, but you can gain more by dropping a bit of midfield now than before. As also extra central forwards or defenders are penalized, we can say that the importance of the wingers and the wingbacks has grown comparatively to the other positions. The winger provide a key tool to boost your midfield and at the same time boosting your attack, while wingbacks provide massive support to the defense, and also to the wings.

- Winger, wingbacks and forwards will make a bit more use out of their winger skill

This even emphasizes the importance of winger skill further, so to get a good team, the wings get more important, and the wingbacks are multi-taskers in that respect. Good wingbacks may be the most important players now.

OK, a lot of bla-bla, but still you may wonder what it may mean for you as club trainer. As club trainer, your main priority is to get good training, especially if you are still a young and growing team. As Goal keeper trainer this means you get more tactical possibilities, as you have no obligations besides lining up a goal keeper. For Defending trainers, it opens up some possibilities, as 2 midfielder may now be enough, and thus playing 5-3-2 with 2 midfielders, a winger and two good forwards may become a more stable line-up. You will lose less midfield than before. Further, if your defenders have good passing skills, the 5-2-3 will proof to be more powerful as counter line-up than the 5-3-2 used to be, as you will be more effective in finishing your chances. For midfielder trainers, the new line-ups 2-5-3 and 5-5-0 may allow more strategic flexibility, next to the old 3-5-2 and 4-5-1: the 3-5-2 will not be so dominant anymore. Especially for forward trainers, the situation changes a lot, as the 2-5-3 may very well be more powerful than the 3-4-3 used to be. Also 4-3-3 is interesting, as you can still manage to get a good defense, and 5-2-3 suddenly also is a possibility. So even if you train forwards, you can now play defensively without losing any training.

A further sidenote is that the new rules make it more important to have a broad selection of talented players. Due to the penalty for having more than 1 central player, it is possible that with an extremely bad midfielder, combined with two very strong midfielders, your midfield is lower than if you leave out that midfielder and use just 2 midfielders. Similarly for defenders and forwards, although to a lower extent. Result is that your team may get badly damaged if you suffer an injury but lack good reserves. Do not complain that you had bad luck if you know you could prevent it! Make sure you have more than 11 good players. This was no direct necessity before, but now it really is! If you lack the reserves, an injury may get as bad as a red card… But don’t worry about getting extra reserves – it again enables you to use more tactical flexibility, so you can combine two benefits for the price of one!
So yes, we can conclude that the strategic flexibility for club teams also have grown, although I feel most owners are staying safe with the 3-5-2 so far. I expect this to change as owners start to discover other line-ups as well. It may be more tempting now to use your friendly match to build up formation experience in other line-ups as well – it may even become possible that the tactical rewards can grow so large that it may be beneficial to sacrifice a training spot in order to get more tactical possibilities. However, this is just speculation and far from sure yet. But it seems sure that there will come differences in tactics over time. Try to lose the predictability that all club teams have – being unpredictable is a big advantage and it finally is possible and it makes the game more challenging for you as a manager.


Team Review:

For next Article, a new topic will be the TEAM REVIEW. Here, I will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a specific team. What are areas of improvement, what is the team particularly good at? Training plans will be reviewed, including coaches and trainees. The selection will be analyzed – are there clear bottlenecks to getting good results? What are the chances for the future? Will the team be able to grow further if it continues like this? Further, the look of the team will be checked, although this obviously is of lower importance.

The idea of a Team Review is to assist and guide the newer and younger managers. However, it does not restrict anyone from applying, everyone has a chance to get selected, as long as you as a manager think it would be useful and interesting to get your team reviewed. Got stuck in the subtop and trying to find your way to the absolute top? Then it’s also no problem to join in the game! If you are interested to join, please tell me by HT-Mail: (366050).


Cup, league, U20 and NT:

Further, the league and the Cup have started again. As the season traditionally starts with the Cup, first a short view on the Cup. For all Division IV-Teams, the Cup is over already, but nine Division III-Teams are left. As all Al Amiri-teams are still in the Cup, we can say there have been no huge upsets yet. Nonetheless, deleting the standard line-ups made sure some big teams got an early knock-out. Al-Saidi, ex-Al-Amiri team got knocked out in the first round already by a bot-team, as AL-Saidi made no line-up and thus played with 11 random players. In rounds 2 and 3, the biggest names that got knocked out were 300 warriors and Tropics. Round 4 saw more victims, as the Division II-teams started facing tougher opponents. Ottoman Empire FC got an early 3-2 knock-out versus adidas dubai fc, Al Barsha went out versus Chiksik FC, and pishvar, Abu Dhabi Falcons andMissiN NiNs respectively defeated The Dubai Desert Devils, Emirate 2008, and Dubai Rockets. Many other Division II-teams got knocked out as well – only 15 are left.

In Round 5, the some of the bigger names from the lower divisions will face top teams. Among them are The Winning 11, who face Abu Dhabi Humidity, and Juve Juniors, who are always strong in the Cup and even managed to win the Cup before, will battle versus Dubai Heroes. Expected is that Juve Juniors will aim for another win so that they can face Azad or Kojak United next week. Also pishvar, against Warrawong Grasshoppers, is a team to watch.

In the Al Amiri league meanwhile battle continues. After an easy title for Azad last season, they have finally been beaten in league now, due to underestimating their opponent. Nonetheless, with 9 points after 4 matches, they lead the table in front of Kojak United and Abu Dhabi Humidity, who also have 9 points. Total Tykes, Warrawong Grasshoppers and NoTax United in place 4, 5 and 6, are not to be underestimated either, and with Indian Vikings being much stronger now they returned to the highest level, there does not exist anything like easy matches anymore in the Amiri league.

In the II.1, Deira Décidé FC is the sensation of the season, undefeated and leading the list, when they just promoted from division III. A very strong team into the weakest division II may give them good chances to catch the title in Division II right after dominating the III. The II.2 has two clear leaders, who have double of the points of the runner-ups: Al-Qurri and Inter AD seem to continue their battle for the top spot after a short absence of Al-Qurri. In the strong II.3, Awesometropolis makes optimal use of the new rules, and tops to list over strong competitors such as Bianconeri 4ever and IFK CastECastle. The II.4 should be a prey for leader Wild Boys U.A.E., who is the strongest team in their after Total Tykes left.


Meanwhile, the U20 Team is giving experience to the next generation of talented players, in preparation of next seasons' qualifiers, while the National Team just started the Qualifiers, with two very good results: a 2-1 win versus South Korea and a 2-2 away draw against Hong Kong. Next on the schedule are Costa Rica, Czech Republic (both away), and Slovenia (home).

The U20 and National Team matches are every Friday at 10PM Abu Dhabi time.

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