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.

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.