The match engine – part 1: Chances

Before anyone starts a flaming war. The data I based my theories on can be found here: http://wihlah.aleander.no. The experiment is described here: https://wihlah.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/the-match-report-analysis-experiment-the-background/. I am more than happy to receive critical and constructive feedback on these experiments. I cannot guarantee that I didn’t miss something, so If you notice something out of place, don’t hesitate. Suggestions to further experiments or calculations are also more than welcomed.

The chances in a match

In the forum it has been said that each match has 10 set chances. I do not believe this is exactly true, and we have been given examples of matches with more goals. Special events are not a part of “chances” as such, and maybe also penalties. I simply haven’t been able to figure that out. What we DO know is that not all chances are reported on the match report. So IF the max of 10 chances is true, the average number of chances should not be above 10. Because of the crappy (hope no one is offended by this)  teams I have been playing with this season, most of the chances should statistically be on the match report, as there isn’t that much of a chance the defenders/midfielders of my opposing teams would stop anything (except for det beste teamet, which can clearly be seen on the match reports of those two matches as well).

The average number of chances in my 14 matches this season is 9,64. Remembering that only real chances are reported, the claim of max 10 chances in a match seem to hold up.

The distribution

There were 135 chances in the 14 matches of which:

• 88,1 % of those were regular chances
• 5,2 % were free-kicks
• 3,7 % were penalties
• 0,7 % were corners (only one this season clearly a corner)
• 2,2 % were special events (long shots)

This means that 9,6% of the chances were set-pieces chances. HT-Tjecken (I believe, the source of the statement is much appreciated), has claimed that around 10% of the chances are supposed to be of that type, which proves fairly true.

First half vs second half

The chances between the two halves are distributed as follows:

	First half	Second Half
Total chances	50,37 %	49,63%
Regular chances	52,94%	47,06%
Free kicks	14,28%*	85,71 %*
Penalites	20,00%*	80%*

*Note that there were only 7 free kicks and 5 penalties this season, and so this could very likely be lack of data. But it would not suprise me if Hattrick has actually taken this into account either, it is nevertheless a fun fact.

Conclusion on chances in general

The claim that each game has 10 chances distributed between the teams has yet to be called false, but It has not been proven either. The claim that 10% of all chances are set pieces chances, seems valid enough with my data at least.

I will look more closely into chance distribution vs playmaking advantage, effectivity/efficiency, chance vs player position distribution and attack side distribution with the AiM tactic later on.

The match report analysis experiment – the background

I decided, while reading a book actually, to do some experiments on the match engine.

“How do you do that exactly”, i wondered sitting there. And then it struck me, loooong in the back of my head I vaguely remembered TH-Bjorn saying:

On Match report, Line-up (Forum post 2002523.108): 2002523.107 2002523.107 2002523.107

Match report is the only data available for us. If it doesn’t say everything ’bout our team’s quality then what does? Our imagination? ;P
Who says match report doesn’t say everything??? I didn’t say that. I said the ratings doesn’t say everything. The match report has further information to add. Some information is only known to the manager of your opponent. That is how it is supposed to be. It is also how it is IRL

One more time: “Who says match reports doesn’t say everything???”. So I did some searching and found that this link http://club.hattrick.org/KawasakiTigers/default.asp?site=http://mrat.hattricknippon.org, which is dead now. SO I did the next natural thing; I created my own tool.

The tool

The tool is not open to everyone yet unfortunately, I need to modify it somewhat so it will be if there is a need. What I basically did is to break the basics down and collect all the information available to us in the match report. I found this to be:

Matchdetails

For my team:

• Matchid
• Season
• Round
• Matchtype – league, friendly or cup
• Date
• Home/away
• Possession first half (mine only, calculated the rest)
• Possession second half (mine only, calculated the rest)
• Team attitude
• Team tactic

For both teams:

• Team exp
• Team stars
• The midfield/dr/dc/dl/ar/ac/al ratings
• Hatstats
• Loddar stats (not implemented yet, but I will :))

Match Events

From each line of text in the match report, I deducted the following parameters:

• Owner – me or opponent
• Type – chance, corner, freekick, penalty, injury, booking, special event
• Goal – yes / no (if the event resulted in a goal. Typically injuries and bookings dont ever. The others might)
• Minute – is not always given, but the intervals are quite clear so I guessed at some
• Side – from the right, left or center (or none)
• Player – Name or nick or id, doesnt matter
• Player position – Which is quite interesting I think
• Description – The actual wording in the match report

The boring part

I’ll tell you right now. Entering these details when only one match left in the season wasn’t very fun, but nevertheless I did it. All the details. For all of my league games at least. And I started to play with numbers. I will present the results in a separate post, but I will tell you, this is actually very informative. I have been browsing through those reports briefly and concentrated on the stars and player performances. I have never actually looked at the chances for/against, The chance conversion ratio, the efficiency of the chances or the number of chances from possession advantage. I could also from this deduct the number of set pieces chances, the number of chances totally and average in a match.

Why can 14 matches be enough statistical data to be trustworthy?

Actually it cant. Its way too little data. But I do have some advantages which makes it more sensible.

1. I have had the pleasure of winning the possession (often by far) in 100% of my matches
2. I won all the games of the season
3. I played the exact same tactic (almost at least) the entire season
4. My opponents have been really bad through all the matches with almost no active managers

But I did not use the same players, and my hatstats have differed somewhat. But still, some general things can be concluded from these data.

Data source

Those of you who like details, the results can be found here: http://wihlah.aleander.no

Promotion, and my strategy

I promoted this season. My league was quite weak and I managed to win all my matches without a problem. So now im moving up and will face better teams, better players, and more importantly more active managers. I will continue to play 3-5-2. So what is my strategy?

Initial thoughts

I know that to have a fair chance of a good table position I need to do three things:

1. Reach a new playmaking level
2. Be more efficient, and score as often as I can in the chances I produce
3. Be able to stop as many opponent chances as possible

A new playmaking level

This point is fairly easy. I need better players, with higher playmaking skills. So I have to replace most of my midfield. With my 3-5-2 formation strategy I will need 1 extremely good midfielder. Probably an older chap (25+). I will preferably get one with high experience (solid or better). I will try to keep 2 “semi trainees” which will improve fairly quick over the course of the season, 19-23 year olds. I will also try to get a winger with fairly high winger skill and semi high playmaking skill aged 19-22, and play him towards middle to help win the midfield. He will also improve during the course of the season, however not as rapidly. One winger will however be a very good wing skill to support the attack with high experience.

This would give me a fair chance of having a good central midfield, and with it be forced to play “Attack in the Middle” if I succeed.

Becomming more efficient

Last season I had a 71% efficiency on my attacks, and now I will face even better defenders. I also had 12 set pieces chances last season, with an efficiency of 75%. The set pieces chances are very important I think so one of my players must be extremely good. My attackers also needs to be replaces as most chances end up at their feet.

However, in order to make it easier to score for any player in front of goal, I need the level of passing improved drastically. This is why I need good passing skills for most of the midfielders I bring in. Maximum one or two levels lower than the main skill. I will therefore not choose midfielders with high defending skills, in order to appont more force into my attacking game.

Stopping chances

I will need 2 new defenders as well. I have only 3 (in a 3-5-2 formation), and these must be able to play both as central defenders or wingbacks each match, depending on the strengths of my opponents attackers. They have to be even better now that I focus less on the defence skill of my midfielders. To even this up I will get a great goalkeeper. This way I keep some defensive balance, but hope to be more efficient than most of my opponents, and thus win some matches.

Captain

I need a new captain with high experience. I will combine this role with the set pieces taker and the last missing winger. He will be fairly old, a fallen star with high wingerskills only.

Lets see how it all works out.

New transfer market regulation – why its wrong

THFA (The Hattrick Football Association) and the PU (Player Union), nice nicks for Hattrick staff, are trying to beat the high rate of buying and selling players. Which in itself in not a bad thing, I think. However the solution they have decided upon is the wrong one. Unfortunately.

Their goal is mainly two things;

• Stop managers that are exploiting the transfer market with buying cheap and selling the next day for a higher price (commonly known as daytrading).
• Stop managers that keep players until skillup and then sell them (skilltrading).

The rule

From next season on, you can’t transfer list a player more times than he has played games for your team. This means a player must have played at least one game for your team to be listed at all.

Why is this wrong again?

The intention is not wrong, the way they try force it through on the other hand, is not ideal. Think about it. In real life football, players are not (usually) bought and sold in the same week. Thats just not how it works. Regulating the number of times a player can be put on the transferlist will have several effects that are not (I believe) the intention. In fear of not selling for the price you hope for, more players will be listed cheaper. There will be more bidding wars during the active parts of the day, and a possibility to pick up players fairly cheap on not so active parts of the day. Which is exactly what they are trying to prevent. Hattrick would surely want to average out the price for similar players, and not distribute the bidding even more unevenly than it is today?

The daytraders and skilltraders

This is what I would do, I would use the players I buy for low price and play them in the spare parts of my reserve team. If I traing playmaking, I would just put the players as attatckers or defenders when they skillup, or if im just waiting to cash in on them. I would do this every week. And if he is good enough I would play him in the first team as well, but not in a training position. This way I can put him on the transferlist as often as I see it fit, and I would not supper much, except that my reserve team will be less good. But there is also a good side to that, because I wouldnt have to invest in players out of training positions on the reserve team.

Overall

The rule will not, I believe, do what it is intended to do. It will just change the positioning and delay the process of meat transfers (as they called it), until you can afford to use an player in a non training position. It will cause dissaray in the transfermarket itself.

Who will suffer the most?

Those who does not play alot. For example players who have a good first team, but dont care to play friendlies or meddle with trainees. If you have one team, and you buy a new player, you have one chance; ONE CHANCE to sell that old player. If you dont sell him the first time around, you actually have to play the old player in order to be able to put him on the transferlist. Thats just wrong.

If you have a large team, consisting of evenly skilled players, maybe because you play around with different formations, or you have in this example a few players which are backup players that you never use, you can transferlist them (one or several) to buy someone better (or younger). This can be a time consuming thing. You have to rotate your team to sell the backups if they never play or if they havent been playing. Thats not what you want. You want to get rid of them.

If you cant buy backups because you have to play them to sell them then the system is inperfect.

Seriously Hattrick; You have to play a player to sell him? Thats the best you could come up with?

You actually implemented a counting system for every player, and compare the number of games played vs number of times transferlisted?

My solution

My solution isnt actually mine. Its Hattrick’s! They already have the system ready to go!

Once again, what is it they are trying to solve? Is it the number of times a player is transfer listed? No its not, not really. They are trying to keep managers from buying and selling players too frequently. So address the problem then! You have it right there!

Agent fees!

Today the agent fees work like this; if you sell a player after 0 days the agent fee will be 12% of the total sales sum. If you sell after 1 day, the agent fee will be 10,45% and so on. So the longer the player has remained in your club, the less the agent fee will be up to the max of 2% after 16 weeks. The agent fee will be taken directly from the money you receive. The buyer never notices anything. The seller gets less money. (Full table in the bottom of the article)

Hattrick; You have the system! You need in increase the values of agent fees to get exactly what you want. Its scalable, its flexible and it does the right thing!

Add a much steeper agent fee. Keep it at 25%  for the first 3 days, then decrease slowly but steadily until the first week has passed. Then speed up until you reach your 16 week (full season) minimum of 2%. A good and calculated agent fee will decrease the profit of selling players just after buying him. This way also players in the middle of pop’s will get more attractive, managers with backup players will not be affected. Daytrading will prove almost impossible. And people can go about business as usual.

Don’t implement a walk-around to solve a problem. Solve the problem.

Agent fee table

Days	Agent fee
0	12%
1	10,45%
2	9,95%
3	9,59
4	9,3%
5	9,05%
6	8,83%
1 week	8,62%
2 weeks	7,55%
3 weeks	6,76%
4 weeks	6,12%
5 weeks	5,57%
6 weeks	5,09%
7 weeks	4,65%
8 weeks	4,24%
9 weeks	3,87%
10 weeks	3,52%
11 weeks	3,19%
12 weeks	2,88%
13 weeks	2,58%
14 weeks	2,3%
15 weeks	2,03%
16 weeks	2%

The Transfer Market – buying players

The transfermarket in hattrick is based on a auctioning system. From the day a player is put on the trasferlist, a deadline of 3 days exactly from that time will be set. There is no way to bid on players not on the transfermarket, and there is no way to buy a player until the deadline of the auction has passed. The team with the highest bid when the deadline passes, will buy the player. If a bid is put on a player within the last three minutes of the deadline (which will happen frequently), the deadline will be extended with the time of the bid + 3 additional minutes. This is made so to protect you and give you enough time from to decide if this is the player you really want, and then raise and hope the other manager gives it up.

Things to keep in mind

• Managers tend to bid for players when deadline is close
• Between the time someone overbids you and you raise that bid again, other managers can bid. You might have to race against several other managers.
• You will get a hattrick each time someone overbids your bid, but you will get no warning if someone raise a bid which is not yours

Timing

The ultimate time to bid for a player is exactly 3 minutes before the deadline passes, that way the deadline will not be extended, and it can go unnoticed by some managers. The longer you are competing in a bidding war, the bigger the chance of a third or forth manager gets an eye up, and starts bidding themselves.

The time of the day also matters. There are far fewer managers online during the night (Eastern Central Time , but also a lot fewer players). Usually there is alot of managers online in the morning before work or school (08:00 – 09:30), during lunch hours (11:00 – 13:00), when managers get home from school /work (16:00 – 17:00) and just before bedtime (in the hours between 22:00 and 24:00). Combined these make up  most of the day unfortunately. A very good time would be at 18:00 christmas eve! ;)

Strategies

When you have found a player you are interessted in, there are some smart ways to behave. And some rules to follow.

1. Determine a limit of how much you are willing to give for this particular player. Remember you are interested in revenue, not the player itself. There will _always_ come a similar chance. Believe me. Find a maximum fee, and never, ever go over it. Discipline man!
2. Never enter a bidding war. Ever. Its just too hard to come out of. If someone overbids you. Bid the maximum amount and no more. If he overbids you, you are smarter than he is, in the long run.
3. If there are more than two bidders, you don’t want to be there. Get out.
4. If someone overbids you and there is a long way to your maximum amount, bid in the last minute of the deadline. Annoy him. Make it take time and raise by the minimum amount. Then after a couple of 2-3 rounds of overbidding, raise a lot (your maximum price). If he haven’t given up during the sparring of bids, and does not now, well you are smarter than him.
5. Never bid on a player ‘just to get a message if someone overbids you’. You are raising the price! Think about it. He will find the player regardless. You just minimize your own chance of revenue!

Other good ideas

Become a hattrick supporter. The developers deserve it. Its not much money we are talking about. You get bookmarks! Bookmarks are your way to making it a whole lot easier on yourself. If you cant be online all day and remember to bid, use the e-mail warning function and keep your e-mail client looking for mail as often as possible. You can search and bookmark up to 50 players, and wind up getting only one. But that player will be your way to lady fortune!

Don’t buy a player because of his name, or his cool picture. Stick to the facts. Except if his name is Ryan Giggs. Then i’ll forgive you.

Age subskill

You will see age displayed as x years and y days. This is rather important. A player of 18 years and 1 day, has 113 days left to train with the speed of a 18 year old. A player of 18 years and 110 days has 2 days left. And price will go down alot when a players age ‘pop’. This is a weapon you should use, as many more have learned the trick. When a player, under the age of 24, is about to become one whole year older, the price will drop significantly. This is why alot of people, and you should two if you make a mistake, list people when they are approaching 100 days. Even if he has not ‘popped’ in the skill you wanted, he is worth more now without the pop, than he is with the pop and one year older.

Dont buy players about to age up

If the player is more than 80 days over his current main year, chances are he wont pop until aging and you will not earn as much as you planned to. Do try to buy players that have just aged, if they are about to pop. You can get them fairly cheap, and after the pop you will get a nice revenue.

Transfer compare

A fast way to see what the player you have setteled on buying is worth is to use the transfer compare tool, and see players with similar TSI and the same form. This gives you an idea what your max amount should be less than. Less than! Remember, revenue! What people often miss in transfer compare is the age of the player. Simply because it doesn’t show. The price difference between a 17 year old under 20 days and a 17 year old more than 80 days is idiotic. It might be 35 000 000 for a solid playmaking solid passing for the first player, and 5 millions for the latter. Because by the time that first player reaches 80 days, he will be excellent on his way to formidable. Worth a fortune. You want those kind of players, but you need some (hehe) hard cash first. So use transfercompare with this in mind. If you narrow down your player purchaces to players not passed 50 days, and you get players under the average price for someone with similar skills, form and TSI, you could sell him for just the profit, and many do. If you could get him to pop, and then sell him, you’ve got the idea.

A lifeline of a lifetime

Then last but not least. I am now confident that you have read and understood every single point in this guide. If you have not; stop here, go back and read it again until you do.

There are tools to help you. One of which could help your brain alot if you do it right. Namely; PsicoTSI. This is a firefox plugin. It is completely legal. And it will make your day a hell of a lot easier (excuse the language).  You can download the latest version from: http://www.aldeaglobal.net/psicotsi/lang-en.htm. There is also a post that explains how it works at http://bobymoore.blogsome.com/2007/01/13/understanding-psicotsi/.

PsicoTSI

What this tool does is to add some information to any completely visible player (your own senior squad or on the transferlist), and calculate the main skill subskill for you.  Behold a new world! You can now, with a glimse of an eye, see which players are likely to pop soon. Without doing that whole comparing players with same secondary skills, but different main skill, like in my previous examples. However it has three groups; High form (excellent, solid, passable), Average form (inadequate, weak, poor), Low form (the rest).

This tool is much more accurate for players in the middle of each group (solid and weak mainly). So I tend to buy players with solid or weak form only. The average of the groups. And in my experience solid is the most accurate by far. One thing you can also notice is that the skill for a solid player (7) can have 8.06, meaning he is estimated to be an excellent player. This is the perfect player to  buy. He will pop within 2 weeks of training almost guarranteed.

Dont buy players with a subskill lower than 75 (ie. 6.75) in his form group.

Chances are he will take 4-5 weeks with a passable trainer, or even a solid one. Why can some players be calculated to be excellent even if he is listed as solid right there? Well his secondary subskills might be high. You never know if a player has recieved 3 weeks of passing training and his TSI has increased because of that. So this tool can also fool you into believing a player is going to pop sooner than he will. Because of high subskills. Which is why you shouldnt buy players with lower than .75 PsicoTSI values. The real subskill could be closer to .50 if you are unlucky and you are looking at a player who will age on you before you get the proper revenue.

Summary

You should now be able to get pretty good signings. At least you wont ever loose your investments if the maximum price, age tip, PsicoTSI tips, form tips and transfer compare tips are used. It will limit the numbers of players you want significantly, but hey, remember; we are playing to win. And winning is fun. :)

I will do a complete first step guide for new managers shortly, and also a guide for your first purchaces just to get started. Stay tuned.

Almost ready to go shopping!

But not quite ready. What you should have learned so far is:

• What kind of players you are looking for. And why!
• How you can separate players with identical skills
• Find players that are close to pop and skip the ones that arent

What remains then? Lets go bidding for players already!

Unfortunately there are some things you need to know before you do. Mainly stars, stamina and form.

Stars

For every match any one player plays 90 full minutes, a star will represent how well that player performed. This is based on his skills and what position he played. The same player will (probably) not perform the same as a forward as a midfielder, because his skills are more suitable for one or another position. The more stars he recieves the better he played. beware that the star system in hattrick does not take notice of the opponent. One player will play as well against a crappy team as against a world class team. Also goals or assists have no influence to the number of stars. I have had players scoring 5 goals in a match, and still “only” recieve two stars.  It represent the contribution the player gave in a game. As with TSI, stars can be used to compare players, if they have similar skills. Note however that a inner midfielder who plays defensively can perform better than of the player played offensively.

Why are some stars grey and some yellow?

Haha, you noticed that did you? Well the total number of stars represent how well he really did. The yellow stars represent how well he contributed at the end, depending on the stamina. So the gray more or less show you the performance loss during the match due to lack of stamina skill. This is one of the reasons I have told you to search for players with passible or solid stamina.

What to use stars for?

• Comparing identical players in one position
• Comparing one player playing in different positions (you do this all the time in the youth team!)
• Looking at how good a player can be if he is playing at his maximal potential
• Give you a glimse of how well the player is performing at the moment

What not to use stars for?

• Compare the teams total stars against another teams total stars
• Comparing players who have played in different positions
• Directly figure out how good a player is (he might be better in another position, or with better form/stamina)

Alltid Hattrick

Alltid is integrating with hattrick, and can show you the history of the player. Every match the player has played is shown with the number of stars the player recieved. Compare this to his form and look out for players with many stars and high TSI, but low form. These can be hidden jewels for you.

Form

Hattrick isnt very random. Actually the lack of random may also be one of their strengths. But form, thats a bit random. And the good thing is, form is very important. It waries from wretched to excellent. Form will affect a couple of things:

1. The TSI will drop/increase significantly with changes to form
2. The matchreating and player contribution in a match is heavily dependent on form

In order to make solid chaiced on the transfermarket, you need to know about what form does. A lot of hattrick managers have a natural understanding about form actually. The player price will often be alligned with the players potential, not his current form. But if you are in need of player that will contribute right away, players with weaker form than passable are a waste of time.  it takes a long time for form to increase. When you are buying a player lower than solid (and I check for solid and excellent form players as well), you need to check his playing history (Alltid link) to see if the players form in dropping or increasing. You will try to sell your traineed/players after a maximum of 4 weeks if all else fails. If his form has dropped 2-3 levels, you wont get as much revenue. Maybe he wont even be playable, because of his low TSI. Players with similar skills and higher form will have higher TSI, and therefore be more attractive, as they can contribute more immediately.  And also because people arent as smart as you will be. Most people use the transfer compare tool and look at TSI vs salesprice. Most disregard the the fact that there is a reason why form is listed there at all. Its just for that reason; it indicates how good a player is at the moment, and what his actual potential will be.

Low form; an oportunity!

You dont need players to contribute now. You need to earn cash. Players with weak, inadequate or even passable form, and have just increased from lower form can give you a TSI boost quite fast with him popping as well. So you can use this to your advantage. Bear in mind that player form increase or decrease is random.

Background form

Skills have subskills, form has background form. The background form is the potential of a playerform at the moment, and a players form will move towards this backgroundform either you want it to or not. So if you have a player with solid form and wretched background form, his form will slowly decrease to wretched. its a sad thing really. Form never changes directly, its always floating towards that background form. And when the background form changes, thats random.

Form summary

The thing I have been trying to explain here is this. if you purchace a player which form has changed lately, there is a fair chance he will contine to flow in that direction. If he is decreasing you have no idea if he is on his way from solid to wretched or solid to passable. So dont test your luck. Buy players with a steady form for a long time, or players that have recently increased his form rating. Chances are it will increase even more, and thatws your bonus. If he doesnt, well you lost nothing. but it is always a gamble no matter who you buy, the background form might randomly change drasticly to the better or worse. No one knows.

NB! Players who play regularly will increase faster and loose form more slowly than players that do not play.

Stamina

In the same way that form affects the number of stars and TSI, stamina does the same. But its not as random. And can be increased more easily with training. You you keep your stamina at 14-15% players under the age of 24 will have passible to excellent stamina throughout the season. (This is a good page about stamina levels: http://www.hattricknews.org/stamina-study-what-percentage-is-needed-to-retain-stamina/) But a low stamina does affect the TSI alot. So if a youngster has a low TSI because of low stamina (weak or inadequate), he will probably increase within a couple of 3 weeks anyway and you will recieve that TSI bonus to your advantage when trying to sell him. If he doesnt increase, well you at least didnt loose anything.

If he decreases; well then you are not following my advice :)

TSI – the peekhole into a players soul

TSI or Total Skill Index is what hattick use to summerize how good a player is in total. The exact formula is a ‘secret’, but many attempts to break the code has been made.

Lets look a bit behind the scenes;

Assumption: The following skills are used to calculate the TSI value; keeper, playmaking, winger, scoring, defending, passing, form and stamina.

Actual skills (subskills)

Skill levels are not actually 0-20. A player wont jump directly from passable to solid, he will have to work his way up from 6.00 to 6.99 before popping. That means there are 100 different levels of any skill. Subskills is the term used to describe this behavior. The bad news is that hattrick only shows the main skill (presented in text or levels 0-20), his actual skill is hidden. The good news is that there are several ways to spot if a player has a high or low subskill. The one I wont mention is that the subskills are used during matches. So two players with what seems to be identical skills, where the first have high subskills and the other low subskills, the first player will recieve more stars inthe game (provided their form and stamina is also the same).

TSI indicate subskill levels

So a skill is represented in hattrick as x.xx, where x is any number. What we know is that the skill,subskill is used in the formula to calculate TSI. AHA! So investigating the TSI will tell us alot about the real skill, not only the visible value. Thats good to know. Thats an important aspect in order to ern more money than anyone else, because you will know which players are about to pop, and which has just popped. But I have to warn you, this is something you will need time to get the grasp of. lets go o with TSI investigation.

Form and Stamina

These have a huge imact on the TSI. If you are a new user, I reccommend purchasing only players with passable or solid form and stamina. There are just too many unknown factors for you to keep in mind. As you grow more comfortable with TSI I will add some notes in how you can also exploit these skills. But for now lets look at the regular skills only.

What about Set-Pieces?

Set pieces has no effect to a players TSI.

The formula

In a easy world the TSI would be calculated as follows: sum(keeper, playmaking, winger, scoring, defending, passing). But it is not as easy as that.

Weight

TSI does not increase in a linear fashion with skilllevels. This means there is no even increase when going from ie. passble to solid as from solid to excellent. The better the skill, the higher the TSI increase. High skills count more then lower skills.

Lets look at some example 18 year olds, with solid playmaking, passable passing, weak defending and solid stamina. All have passable form for comparison reasons:

Player 1 (TSI: 2080) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 5 Passing 6 Scoring 4 Price: 3 999 990	Player 2 (TSI: 1500) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 5 Passing 6 Scoring 4 Price: 3 000 000	Player 3 (TSI: 2070) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 5 Passing 6 Scoring 4 Price: 3 750 000
Player 4 (TSI: 1370) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 4 Passing 6 Scoring 4 Price: 2 800 000	Player 5 (TSI: 1440) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 3 Passing 6 Scoring 3 Price: 10 000 000	Player 6 (TSI: 1360) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 3 Passing 6 Scoring 4 Price: 2 490 000
Player 7 (TSI: 1220) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 7 Winger 3 Passing 6 Scoring 3 Price: 2 200 000	Player 8 (TSI: 2290) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 8 Winger 4 Passing 6 Scoring 2 Price: 10 000 000	Player 9 (TSI: 2430) Keeper 1 Defending 4 Playmaking 8 Winger 5 Passing 6 Scoring 2 Price: 8 000 000

Case player 1 vs player 2 vs player 3

These players have _identical_ skills and the maximum difference in TSI is 2080 vs 1500 = 580. This strongly indicate that players 1 and 3  are much stronger than player 2 in playmaking, in other words, their subskill is much better. Consider now players 8 and 9. These have already reached excellent playmaking, but the search criteria is the same. Notice that player 8 has a scoring of 2, but since that skill is quite low, it should not affect the total TSI much. The TSI difference between player 8 and 1/3 is only 210/220. This indicate that players 1 and 3 are actually very close to popping, and player 8 has just popped. These two would have been very good prospects for buying and selling after 1-2 weeks of playmaking training. Players 2,4,5,6,7,8 and would not be good as they would need extensive training for may weeks before actually popping and give you the renvenue you need.

What about player 5?

The open eye will also spot player 5 as a possible prospect. His winger and scoring skills are quite low (weak), but compared to for example player 7 his TSI is much higher, actually higher than player 4 and 6 as well, even though they have better skills. This indicate that the players main skill and its subskill is somewhat higher. There is still too much difference between player 5 and 1/3 to be sure of his fast popping. But he could be a ok choice as well, especially if you could get him quite cheap.

Summary

That concudes the first part of TSI investigation. But this will be a subject I will get back again and again. TSI is a summary of the players total skills. You can use TSI to determine the difference between players and a player hidden subskill.

Play friendlies, get the maximum out of trainings

Training in hattrick work like this:

1. You pick a skill you want to train
2. Players that have played in that position last week (between last training update and this one) will increase in skill
3. Some positions are fully compatible with one skillset, some are moderate compatible, some are not compatible
4. Different skills are harder to increase than others

This means in short tems, if you do not play friendlies, half of your potential training session goes to waste. So play friendlies every week. I know I repeat my previous posts, but this is important.

Training type analysis

Playmaking increases:Playmaking

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Inner midfielders	100%	8 weeks
Wingers	50%	16 weeks

Short passing increases:Passing

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Inner midfielders	100%	5,5 weeks
Wingers	100%	5,5 weeks
Forwards	100%	5,5 weeks

Through passes increases:Passing

Position	Effect	Minimum time
Defenders	100%	6,5 weeks
Inner midfielders	100%	6,5 weeks
Wingers	100%	6,5 weeks

I only mention these for now, as these are the ones important for the long time strategy of building midfielders.

Minimum time

I will get back to your staff shortly, but this indicates the least amount of time from one player increases in skill, till that same players increases again (which is called a pop in hattrick terms). But beware, all skills does not raise the value of the player in the same way. A player popping in playmaking will get you better revenue, than one popping in passing. Hence the difference in time, for balance.

It also assumes that your main coach has a solid training skill, that he has 9 assistants, and that the player is 17 years old. For each year older the player gets, the total time to pop increases by 8%. And the less good your trainer is, the slower they learn. So getting a solid coach will increase your revenue, but will be too costly the first season.

Skill level also matters when discussin pop’ing time. The general rule is this; the lower the current skill, the faster the player will improve. A study of this can be found at: http://www.home.no/frag2/trainingsystem.xls. If it doesn not make sense now, don’t worry. We will come back to training times and details in more detail later. (- Thanks to ErewashValley for imput.)

Summary

I have gone through how training works, who gets training, and at what effect. Now you know enough to look at getting some players which will take the least amount of time to pop. Cause thats where the money is.

Long term strategies, your best friend and worst enemy

Before you go on a shopping spree, you will need to have a long term strategy to guide you. Your money at hand will be limited, which will make your decitions extremely important i order to succeed. At any point in the game actually, you should ask youself; what is my long term strategy and how am I following that strategy now.

There is no need to beat around the bush, your nr. 1 primary goal should be: $$$$$$$$. There is nothing else actually. Money makes the world go round, as it also is in hattrick. The goal of your strategy should be, how can I earn the most money. I play games to win. Those who play for fun, can certainly join and be left behind in their glory. Forget how can I win matches, focus on how can I earn money.

You are ready to promote when promotion does not affect your trainees

Trainees is the most common term for players you buy and expect to sell to raise more money. Talenting if you like. And the type and number of your talents / trainees, depend on your strategy.

So how do I choose strategy

I cannot dictate how you like to play football. You might have a preffered tactic; you might have a background from a specific position; you might even have a preffered style of play. I will say this though, when you start up your team, you will need to win some matches, and you need to sell your promising youngsters to strengthen your team. To win matches you need strong midfielders in lower divisions. This is why I suggest to start building around that.

Does age matter?

Yes! Age does matter. In the grand scale of things a 19 year old and a 27 year old with the same skillset will perform exatcly the same. So in performance, age doesnt matter. Is the price for a player aged 19 and 27 with the same skillset the same? Hell no! A 19 year old will be much more expensive. Why? Because a 19 year old will train much faster than a 27 year old. And you need your players to train fast, in order to sell them for a nice profit, and improve your team. This is the name of the game. The younger the player, the faster he trains, and the more profit you will get from him.

Trainees

In many strategies you are offered advice to buy 17 year olds, train them in the same thing until he reaches 21 and sell him. The reason behind this advice is that at the age of 21 is training speed will drop significantly. Although this can be considered a good advice, its not the best way to go about it. These are some reasons why this is not the best idea:

1. It takes a loooong time
2. Its quite boring, you want to have action, not wait for 4 seasons before getting anywhere
3. 17 year olds are quite expensive. You need to go down significantly in primary skill, before you can actually buy a player you can afford.
4. You are adviced to get a passable 17 year old, but you are not experienced enough to know the difference between a good passable player, and a bad one. I will explain how TSI can help you with that later, but for now, thats not the way to go
5. You are looking for fast money, not ALOT of money in 4 seasons.
6. The best profit is players that are 19 – 20 year old, and go from solid to excellent within a couple of trainings, AND have a decent passing skill (passable or better). You can make 3 000 000 in two weeks off these players. But note also that you wont get there now. I will create an entire post about beginning strategies and transfers (and yes it does involve young players with passable playmaking skills because thats where you need to start).
7. Even though you need a long term strategy, you also need room to manouvre

Formation

In order to get the most out of your players (first team and trainees both), you need them all to play every week. you can arrange friendlies once every week. Do so. Every week. From now until eternity. It doesnt take long. Choose a formation, and stick to it. I reccomend 3-5-2, as it will give room for 5 midfielders, and you can more easily win the posession and create the most chances, and you can have 3 inner midfielders in your first team and reserve team (a total of 6) players with maximum training each week, and 2 wingers in both teams (a total of 4), to get 50% training effect, each week. That is 10 players total. Potentially 10 players with the ability to generate 3 000 000 each week. you wont be so lucky, but that is the goal anyway. 10 players to help you generate money in the beginning. Thats a good start.

Training

I will keep the training post short for now, but select playmaking with 14% stamina training. That will raise the stamina of all the players that matter over time, and those you train quite fast (since they are young). You need to keep this type of training for a while.

Now you are set for a strategy that will bring income, its time to look at some other aspects of the game you need to look into.

Skills

In order to understand hattrick, you need to get a grasp of playerskills.

Skills are used to represent how good a player is, in different aspects of a match. Depending on his position on the pitch, one (or several) skills will determine how well that player is going to preform for you. So lets dig into skills first.

SKILLS

All senior players have the following set of skills / attributes:

Stamina

This skill determine how a players ability to perform well during a match. How quick the player gets tired. With a low stamina, the player will loose performance during the game. Note also that the stamina can maximum reach the level of excellent.

Keeper

This reflects the ability for a player to prevent the ball from going into your own net. This skill is only important for goalkeepers, but not the only skill a goalkeeper needs.

Defending

This skill will measure how well the player can prevent opponent attacks, anywhere on the pitch.

Playmaking

This skill is the opposite of defending, namely the players ability to create scoring opportunities.

Winger

The ability to create scoring opportunities by advancing down the wings.

Passing

This skill will more or less give you better chance of scoring once a chance has been produced, but it does not have an impact on how many chances you will create. Only the quality of the chances.

Scoring

The players ability to score goals given the oportunity.

Set pieces

This skill will have an impact on the success of a free kick, corner or penalty.

Skill levels

The scale of skills vary from 0-20, where 20 is the best attainable level. Usually the skill level are describes in words as follows:

20 – divine
19 – utopian
18 – magical
17 – mythical
16 – extra-terrestrial
15 – titanic
14 – supernatural
13 – world class
12 – magnificent
11 – brilliant
10 – outstanding
9 – formidable
8 – excellent
7 – solid
6 – passable
5 – inadequate
4 – weak
3 – poor
2 – wretched
1 – disastrous
0 – non-existent

More thoughts on skills

Ok ,so you have a few skills for each player. Which do you need to pay attention to?

1. Set Pieces: You only _need_ one player with high set pieces skill. One player with a high set pieces skill will take all your corners, free kicks and penalties. Aproximately 10% of the chances in a game are of this nature. That is 10% free goals, which is alot! Iwould reccomend the following formula: SUM(20 – division_level) = needed set pieces skill. In division 6 and 7 you can do well with a brilliant (skill level 11) and better.
2. Stamina: A player cannot reach more than excellent (skill lvl 8 ). For players in your first team, this skill should be from passable (skill lvl 6) to excellent. For other players you can ignore this value. It will increase over time, dont worry. It has other impacts like TSI, but thats another story.
3. Playmaking: In the lower leagues, this is the main skill you want to focus on. The total playmaking sum of your playing midfield (wingers count less than inner midfielders),  will determine how many of the chances will be yours. If you dominate the midfield, you will create more chances than your opponent, and on a normal day win the match. To be successful, you need a strong midfield.
4. Passing: In order to secure that you score more goals than your opponent, the passing skill of your players will determine the quality of the chances you get. So a high passing skill, give you a better chance of scoring. This should be your secondary skill to focus on.
5. Defending: If you manage to both create more chances than you opponent, and with a high defending skill also destroy the opportunities they do have, you will look at happy numbers on the scoreboard. And you are beginning to dominate your matches. Now look, a midfield with high playmaking, passing and defending is expensive. You wont get there in a while. But this should be your goal. With high playmaking and passing midfielders, and a defence with good defending skill is much cheaper. And depending on your long time strategy and training, the players you select should be carefully analyzed before you give them the chance.
6. Scoring: This is in fact not that important in the lower leagues. If your attackers/strikers have excellent (lvl 8) to outstanding (lvl 10) scoring you may be able to win games where you are the underdog (the opponent have more chances than you). But if your opponents have a good defending skill, you wont get enough chances to win anyway.
7. Keeper: Forget it in the lower leagues. Solid is good enough in division 7, excellent good enough in lvl 6, after that you should get a good goalkeeper.

Summary

Your primary target should be to win the possession each game. Possession is calculated by the playmaking skills of your midfielders, and dictates how many chances you will get. The passing skill will determine the quality of the chances you generate. I will get back to what kind of skills you need in the different divisions.

The most important advice….

Ok, you might have heard this before, and you might not. I heard it, and I ignored it. As I usually do. But dont.

For every new hattrick user; DO NOT BUY PLAYERS THE FIRST WEEK!

Lets repeat that:

Do NOT buy ANY players the first week. Not one! The first week!

I know its hard. Its maybe the hardest thing to not do in Hattrick. But you will reget it! I promise you!

I know you feel like superman, I felt like superman. Don’t do it. Wait until you know whats what, and who is who. You need to save your cash. I’ll get back to why.

If I could offer you one tip for the future ‘waiting’ would be it.

Just another hattrick blog?

This blog is dedicated to the online football manager strategy game Hattrick.

Those of you who do not know Hattrick;

• It is free (join at http://www.hattrick.org)
• You manage a fantasy football team
• You handle almost every aspect of the club
• In short the game gives you various ways to improve your team, to win matches and gain a good name for yourself
• You play in the country you are in
• You can invite friends to play in the same division as yourself (in lower leagues at least)

Those of you that do know Hattrick, with this site I want to;

• List everything I have ever done wrong, in order for you to do it right
• Give you some well supported facts
• Try to dismiss some of the false facts which seem to float around in the community

First and foremost this blog will help lower league clubs, but hopefully also be enlightning for those of you that have played a while.