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Life with the U20s - Week 1

Written by OrangeStar

Join OrangeStar for a look behind the scenes at the U20 Oceania Managerial position. Find out about what it takes to be a National Team manager, about the ups and downs, highs and lows, and get engaged and involved with the conversations about the future of our great nations. This is the first of a weekly series about the challenges, thoughts and feelings that come with being the manager.

#fearthebear
#allin

Well, it's official.

This time last week, I wouldn't have imagined being the manager of the U20 National Team for Oceania. I remember years ago when I first started out playing this game, admiring managers like Sir_Samuel_Vimes (4416939), DrKeps (3908599) and ninefourfour (7720127) as they led the team. Others among you may also remember the tenures of scootboy at U20 level and mastercyb (317219), MiLK_MaN (1310614), born2reign (8786192) and InSanitangles at the National Team.

I used to write about Hattrick (and these managers) a lot, as editor-in-chief of "The Oceanian", an online newspaper designed to create interest and enthusiasm for Hattrick on the Oceania forums. As I was writing those pieces in the early hours of each Saturday morning, I never dreamed that one day I would be filling their shoes and in the position of leading our nations into a World Cup Qualification period.

However, the time is upon us. If this is the one shot, the one opportunity, it's time to capture it, not let it slip. Over the past week, I have been compiling as much data as I can from Hattrick Portal (http://hattrickportal.pro/Tracker), trying to get a grip on which players will make good additions to the U20 team ahead of our next wave of matches, which is just under two weeks away. Between now and Monday, the current U20 squad will be completely cleared out, and some new players will be brought in to join some of the returning faces.

Stanski (8611526) has certainly made a huge impact on the face of U20 competition in Oceania, moving to Round 4 of the World Cup and going undefeated, but narrowly missing out on a medal. Even more gut wrenching is the thought that the Denmark team that won the Final went 1-1-1 against us during the campaign.

Nobbyiscool (1826750) also has big plans in motion with the National Team, and I want to use some of the processes from the 'Oceania Monster Project' to help boost our U20 players but at the same time give an opportunity for those players that experience success at U20 level a pathway through to the National Team.

Aside from poring over spreadsheets and plenty of discussion with the crew on Slack, I have been trying to get in contact with managers who have indicated they may want to help with the campaign. If you are interested in being a part of the U20 Oceania team, please drop me a HT-Mail!

I will hopefully be able to produce an article each week about the challenges and experiences that I am having over the course of my tenure. A lot of what I write here will not be planned, or heavily edited, it will just be what I am thinking at the time. A view 'inside my head', if you will. So if there's something you'd specifically like to see, let me know! If you have any questions you'd like to see answered, either ask them in the comments below of flick me an HT-Mail!

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford