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Beginning in Hattrick without manual

Written by Yandros77

Perhaps many of you can relate to this little story…
How did you started playing in Hattrick? My beginning was like this... more or less…

My first day was a bit depressing.
Just after the initial excitement of taking charge of a football club, I bumped into real life.
The field looked like a potato farm, the offices were extremely noisy, the fans were the players’ relatives and the players… God damn! I thought I was going to train some athletic and hard-working guys…and then I realized that my team was a mixture of young ‘talents’ and some gutted ‘mature’ men who seemed to have three portions of both bacon and black pudding for breakfast.

In both cases, their form was horrible: the young ‘talents’ didn’t have a strong enough body to play this game, maybe because they were more used to play football in the PlayStation, and the older ones seemed to be more used to shout at the ref in a pub while drinking a beer.

As you can never know, I decided to have a chat with the trainer - a bald, gaunt guy who always seemed to be tired. He had already been introduced to me as Vicente Figueiras:

- In which position does each player play, Vicente?
- It depends. – He said, while he stared at the horizon.
- It depends on what? On injuries? On tactics? …
- Tactics? OMG… No! We always play it normal here…
- Normal? Don’t you play it passing the ball like F. C. Barcelona? Or maybe following the Catenaccio style? Or maybe even pressing our opponents when they have the ball?
- No. Just normal.
- But… what the hell is that? What do you mean by “normal”?
- Hmmmm… normal means… normal.

It was crystal clear that I wasn’t going to get much information from Vicente. He seemed to be a good guy, but also a bit tired, so I decided to change the topic of our little chat.

- And what about the formation?
- Well… that guy, the Harden one, passed all his High School exams years ago…*(see editor's note)
- Holy Christ… !!No!! I am not talking about their education… I am talking!! about the line-up!!
- Ahhhh… we always play with a 4-4-2.
- In every game? Home and away? No matter who is our opponent?
- Yep, that’s the line-up we have got.
- Who did you got it from? Please Vicente, explain yourself properly… I am not getting a single thing!
- We got it from the previous manager. He came here one day, he sacked a lot of guys, he signed other players, then we played a match and he decided to leave the club.
- He left? What happened to him?
- Dunno. He said something about us. Something like we were a bunch of losers… but the thing is that we played a friendly against a Peruvian II Div. team and we obviously lost.
- Oh… and how on Earth did they travel that much to play against you?
- No… It was us who travelled to Peru. It was the only good thing with what happened to us with that manager. At least we travelled… and he had to empty his pockets to pay the boarding passes…
- You mean you travelled by plane? In this division? And what was the final result?
- 10-0 I think.
- 10-0? Holy crap… And why didn’t you play the Catenaccio style?
- We hadn’t trained that line-up.
- Train the line-up? What are you talking about Vicente? At least you could have played the Catenaccio and then try to counterattack your opponent…
- Nah… we could not get a good enough level in CA tactic. You know… our defenders can’t pass the ball well enough…
- But…
- Wait, sir. You seem to be a good guy. Don’t worry, we come to understand that you don’t want to be in charge of us… there have already been many people like you…
- Don’t misunderstand me, Vicente, but I don’t understand anything at all. .
- Well, I’ve got a manual that can be quite useful for you…

He gave me a dusty and heavy book. “Hattrick: the manual”.

- But Vicente, I have been playing football since I was a kid. Who has written this? Pele? Maradona?
- Nah… some random Swedish guys…
- Random Swedish guys? What are some Swedish guys going to teach me about football if they haven’t ever won a World Cup? – I told him sarcastically while I gave him back his book.
- Sir, I think it will be better if you read it…
- Are you kidding me, Vicente? Leave that book in his place. I will show you how to play football properly tomorrow. I don’t need shitty Swedish books or trifles like that. Go back home, tomorrow we are training at nine o’clock.
- Don’t worry Sir, I have to stay until late today. It is Friday tomorrow, and I must give you our training report tonight.
- Don’t worry Vicente. You can give me the training report tomorrow morning just after the coffee break.

Vicente stared at me for a while like if I had insulted his own mother, and a second later he left me rudely saying that he had more important things to do.
- No, no, NO! The training report has to be available at six o’clock A.M! no matter what this stupid new manager tells me!! If not, the Swedish guys will get angry if I don’t send it on time- he muttered himself while he was leaving.

Obviously, I had loads of work to do in this club. I took a deep breath and I decided to go home.

The following day was going to be pretty intense…

To be continued?