Guide to the Coach in Hattrick

Since many of second team managers (and not only they) have a need of a new coach I decided to repost a good article about coach in hattrick. Thanks to Natstradamus (9039148) for this nice guide. Here it is:

Today I'm going to talk in a bit of detail about the Coach in Hattrick as it stands at the 12th of May, 2012. There have been some recent changes, so I'll try to cover everything. I'll help out the new managers first, then turn to the challenges an Experienced manager faces. I also hope I haven't forgotten anything :-)

Okay, let's get into it...

The New Manager

For many years, when you first joined the game, Hattrick 'set you up to fail'. They gave you a wad of money and set you free! If you started Hattrick prior to a few weeks ago, you may need to reassess what you're doing. The two things you should have sorted out, FIRST, are a Coach and Trainees. Getting both were the two most important things you needed to do, to get a good start in this game.

More recently, Hattrick changed the rules, and now provide new managers with an acceptable Passable coach.

However, there are many new-ish managers out there (and old ones!) who still need to change their coach. The newest managers (ie with Passable coaches) should read on, as it'll give you some insight into whether you want to take the plunge and get a Solid trainer.

So, let's get into the nitty-gritty. As mentioned, in the past Hattrick provided you with a Weak trainer, with X leadership and X experience. It's his training skill that is most important to you. While we all love to compete, competing also means putting a decent team on the field economically. A Weak trainer, put simply, will not train your team fast enough to maintain its value. He must be replaced. Let me reiterate: A decent Coach is the single most expensive investment you will make in your team's progression, and likely the most important, early in the game, IF you still have a Weak trainer.

As mentioned, you basically have 2 'correct' alternatives to choose between. Either a Solid Trainer with Poor Leadership, or a Passable Trainer with Poor Leadership. Note that Leadership is only important for the management of team spirit. It's generally accepted that Leadership higher than Poor is unnecessary in the lowest divisions. A Solid trainer trains about 9% faster than a Passable, and is much more than 9% more expensive. A Passable trainer is a less effective trainer, but the outlay is much lower, and the savings can be spent getting slightly better trainees. There is also another effect. Solid trainers provide your team with better average Form than Passable trainers*. The choice is yours.

It will take a bit of thought to balance your budget, and getting an 'ideal' coach for the medium term will mean getting poorer trainees. Getting a 'less than ideal' coach for the shorter term (and better trainees), could appeal to you. At the end of the day, if you do everything else 'right', there is probably very little in it.

In practical terms, it's not difficult to action the purchasing of a new Coach (externally, ie. not using a player already in your team) .

1. Select (click on) Training
2. Select Change Coach
3. Select External Recruiting
4. Select the 'Trainer Type' (see below)
5. Select Leadership (for the new user, Poor is sufficient)
6. On the next page, you'll get the option to purchase either the Passable or the Solid coach (as well as others). Let's take a quick look at what it costs:

	Euros/US$	Pounds	AU$
Inad	10k	7k	20k
Passable	80k	53k	159k
Solid	268k	179k	537k
Excellent^	4000k	2667k	8000k

^This is really just for illustrative purposes. You could never afford a trainer like this, early in the game. Excellent trainers are for established users. I'll hopefully have room to talk about them at the end of this article.

Trainer Type: Coach Mindedness

If we take the neutral coach as a reference (ie no bonus or penalty), then the latest data suggests the following:

Defensive coach:
has penalty on attack ratings 11.11%-12.5%,
and bonus on defence ratings 11.76%-13.73%

Offensive coach
has bonus on attack ratings 6.45%-8.33%
and penalty on defence ratings 11.54%-12.50%

From: (15172393.504)

In any case, the point of 'Mindedness' is to give the manager the ability to balance the advantages and disadvantages of playing particular formations in order to maximise training and ratings. Remember however that your coach will be around for some time (usually 3 seasons or more unless you get the Passable, in which case you may switch sooner), and your circumstances may change. Some argue that an offensive coach is good for defense trainers as it maximises the area you are not training. Others will take the opposite argument and suggest it's better to boost your best sectors. There's no silver bullet here, and the best choice depends largely on your plans. If in doubt, selecting 'neutral' mindedness is not a bad policy.

So, in summary, and just to repeat, IF you still have your Weak Trainer, upgrading to a decent coach, then going on to buy your trainees, are the two foundations of your HT career. If you muck it up, or ignore it, it could set you back for seasons. Get it right, and you are off! HT is your oyster!

New managers read on, I'll explain how to plan ahead in the following...

The Established Manager

Right, so, now we find ourselves down the track a bit. A few seasons have passed, you have promoted once, you are about to sell some trainees, and you notice something. Your shiny Solid (or Passable) trainer is looking a bit tarnished. His Leadership has eroded over the 'years', and he's now at Wretched Leadership!

The 'forward planners' amongst us won't be concerned at all, because, reasonably soon after getting their initial coach, they planned ahead. They bought a player who could either sit in their team doing nothing (he doesn't have to play) for 16 weeks, or have been building the experience of a player in order to step into the coaching role.

The best kind of coach is the Excellent trainer with Solid Leadership. This is as good as it gets. You cannot get better. For now, lets leave the Excellent Coaches for a bit later, as the vast majority of us won't invest in them, due to their cost.

Note: A player's Experience determines the highest level Trainer he can become. Also, higher Experience lowers the cost of conversion. So, a Magical Experienced player could be made into an Excellent, Solid or even a Passable coach. A Solid Experienced player could be made into a Solid or Passable coach, but not an Excellent coach.

For the vast majority of us, a Solid trainer with Solid Leadership is perfectly fine. Of course, buying a player with high enough Experience (XP) and Solid Leadership is expensive (around 500k euros last time I checked - with no skills).

The Cheaper Options:

You could skimp on the Leadership and buy Passable. It's certainly a much cheaper option, but of course he won't perform at his best, for as long, as if he had Solid Leadership. On the other hand, you could buy a Passable (or even Inadequate) Experience player and build his XP up to Solid+. This is the route many take, as a player like this often has less premium attached to his Leadership in comparison to a 'ready' coach (about half-price in the case of Passable XP). You'll need to spend time on him, playing him in as many matches as possible, to gain enough experience, which may mean he'll need skills, which will cost extra.

Let's take a quick look at Leadership:

Basically higher Leadership (LS) on your coach allows for more effective management of Team Spirit (TS). The higher your TS, the better is your midfield. You initially gain TS by Playing It Cool (or PICing). PICing adds a 33.3% to your current TS. After the match, you'll see the boost. In each of the following daily updates, your TS will fall (if not 'visually', then by sublevels). The rate of this fall in high TS is determined by the LS on your coach. Similarly, if you play MOTS, you will halve your TS. If, after the match, your current TS is below the median (4.5) Composed, then higher LS on your coach will improve your TS (toward composed 4.5) more quickly.

And of course, once made a coach, his Leadership will begin to decline. It's rather random, but we are assured there will at least be no drops in the first season. It's quite possible for a level of leadership to last for 2-3 seasons, but sometimes it's quite a bit less. There's a large random element. Still, it's also why Solid leadership is valued more highly than Passable, although in practical terms there's little or no difference between them in the management of TS.

So you can see, Leadership is very important on your coach, and as you rise in the divisions and the teams/matches get more competitive, you'll need every edge you can get! And in order to be in a position to compete, it's best to plan ahead, and to have a couple of 'future coaches' brewing in your team for later use.

Excellent Coaches

There is much written about 'whether or not you should get an Excellent Coach'. I won't attempt to sway you one way or another, but simply give you the facts.

An Excellent coach is only 'just' excellent, which is why Excellent coaches train at only 5.0-5.5% extra, compared to Solid Coaches.

*Excellent trainers provide better average form than Solid, and Solid provides better average form than Passable.

There is another small advantage I haven't mentioned. An Excellent trainer will train 'more', so that would mean, given (for example), a 10% stamina share, an Excellent coach will train 'more' stamina than a Solid (the same applies for Solid vs Passable).

So you can see, there are quite a few reasons to invest in an Excellent coach, but the downside is the cost:

Excellent trainers are expensive. Here's some examples for you, comparing candidates with similar XP changed into Solid coaches instead.

	Solid Trainer	Excellent Trainer
Solid XP	681800-794000	N/A
Excellent XP	597300-675000	4247700-4800000
Formid XP	527300-592000	3750000-4210000
OS XP	475300-527000	3380100-3750000
Brilliant XP	438300-465500	3116700-3310200
Magnif XP	394700-430000	2806800-3100000

~ prices are in Euros

In other words, as XP goes up, the price comes down, which is really quite critical when looking at Excellent trainers from an economic standpoint. You can find a more complete list here: (http://www.hattrickinfo.com/en/coach/106/#105) or alternatively, you can 'change coach' (right up to the last click) and see the price yourself.

And lastly, many U20 managers would prefer Excellent trainers for their budding prospects. This is one of the great uses of Excellent trainers.

A couple of notes:

Changing trainer can be a strategic decision. Give some thought to the type of mindedness of your new coach, and how you could surprise your opponents with a switch.

Also, the timing is somewhat important. The best time to switch coaches, if you 'require him for the new season', is directly after the first Cup match and before the first daily update following the match. That way you'll get the very most out of him, in terms of longevity.

In general, you ideally want a new coach when he'll be of most use to you, whether that's to survive in a tough division, or to go for the championship. If you'll relegate anyway (or promote!), or if you can tread water without switching coaches, then there may be a more sensible time to switch in the future.

But most of all, enjoy Hattrick!

Links:

Zorba's Unwritten Manual on Coaches: (15172393.17)
*Link to a survey on Coach Levels vs Form: (http://survey.hagonline.org/result/) Translated: (15172393.575)

Link directly to this article (HT-ML, for the forum): [ArticleID=17600]