Road to financial stability

As almost new player in Hattrick (I just finished my first full season) I have already read about one million +1 stories about how to make the best team in the (Hattrick) world. Sounds familiar, huh? At one moment you have to stop reading and take some action. I decided to start training players after reading Jerzy?s Platypus Guide. This article will tell you how I reformed my team, what the results are and what I learned from it. I hope it will help all starting trainers to start earning money in a fun and efficient way.

I already had my team for two months, just enough to do some noob actions..:-). My team included a inadequate coach, a lot of pretty old players (between 19 and 29), but their main skill was at least passable. I had two solid midfielders and one passable with some other nice stats, but they were pretty old. My stadium was 12000 places big. On my bank account a pretty amount of 150.000 euro was waiting to be spent?(thank you youth pull).
After reading Platypus Guide, I decided to start training playmaking. There were two reasons; 3-5-2 is a pretty easy but strong formation, and my midfielders had the biggest potential to earn me some money.

The 150k euro went straight to three 18 'yo who had passable playmaking and sucked for the rest, and one 17 'yo inadequate playmaking/passing/defending guy (who made me very happy later on!). It took me about two weeks to collect trainees for an acceptable price, also because I wanted freshly promoted guys (thanks to the "important concepts" part in Platypus Guide). Don?t think you can buy four or five guys for a descent price in one week, you?ll waste a lot of important money?

It took me three weeks, but there was my Christmas present: two guys went from passable playmaking to solid! Whohoo! I sold them immediately for a total of 250k euro :). Next investment: three 17'yo passable playmakers for a total of 100k. The rest of the money I invested in a bigger stadium since it was always full (my solid playmakers made me win games.. :) ). This was a great investment btw, it really payed off. My stadium went from 12k places to 19k places here.

Three weeks later ( I had three weeks to think about how inadequate trainers suck... :( ) the first 17 'yo went from passable to solid. Too bad it was middle of the season, he had sucky condition etc, so he earned me only 125k (which is still a net profit of about 90k).
Now something special; the 17'yo with inadequate everything I mentioned - he went up 1 level and earned me 175k! By far the best profit I made until now. So looking for sucky passable guys is not always best. Inadequate guys with enough condition/passing/defending can give more profit and are easier to buy most of the times.

From there it went fast; I bought a solid trainer with lousy leadership. After that two of my older playmakers went up to excellent (selling them immediately of course, 350k each). The money went straight to new trainees and better players??
Training goes a lot faster once the trainer is solid and you can affort some more assistant trainers.

Now my situation is: 7 solid playmaking trainees which will stay a bit longer to earn more money in the long run. Besides the trainees I bought a solid keeper, 2 solid defenders and 2 solid scorers. Of course I should not forget the solid trainer, a bigger stadium (19000 places), a clown and (again) 150.000 euro on my bank. Life of a trainer can be good. The next few weeks players will start going up to excellent, and this time I won?t sell them anymore, but train on to formidable (*dollar-signs blinking in eyes..*).

Drawback of the story:
- My Team spirit sucks because of the new trainer and all the buying/selling of players.
- Midfield looses power once you sell the older guys and buy young players for the base team (lost my first two league games to teams with old players in great shape).
- Lot of condition training needed to make the new midfielders useful (big loss of form, made me loose my first cup round)
- very much real life time needed for the transfers..:/

Positive side:
- The training spots are filled with nice and young trainees, they will bring me great cash at the end of the season.
- my trainer and stadium are a lot better then 1 season ago.
- from the spare money i bought 2 solid defenders, 2 solid scorers and a winger, making my whole team solid level! (started the season at passable!)
- The midfield scores a regular passable. Not bad at all for such a new team.
- It is great fun looking at your players at friday morning and seeing them improve. It really makes the friday a less boring day!

What did I learn after a season of struggle?

- Really, really watch condition carefully. I learned it the hard way, its much more important then I thought it would be (both on the transfer market as in games).
- selling all your solid players in the beginning to get some money? I would not advice it. It?s impossible to find replacements in one or two weeks, and it very much depends on the time of the season what kind of players you can buy back for them. I'd rather use them to win some games (supporters are important as well) and sell each of them separately once they go one level up. Much more money (even though its a bit later) and more time to get used to the game before you waste all the money on bad investments in the first few weeks. Also, winning some matches makes the game a lot more fun!
- The guide advices to stick to the trainees you have, except one guy to survive. My opinion: Get rid of the cheap guys once they get solid, and buy other better trainees. I managed to sell an 18 'yo solid who just went up a level, and buy a 17 'yo solid fresh pull from the same money :). I simply combined training with a bit of trading to speed things up.

Anyways, all concluding a team can get from nothing to a money earning machine in just one season! Just stick to the plan and stay positive when things take some time or you loose a match. You?ll definitely be rewarded.

edit 21.02.2007 - sotry written by BocaNL