Training

Foreword
This section of the guide is the biggest and most detailed of all, thus it needs a little preface :). Prepare for a long reading. Cup of coffee might be helpful if you're new to hattrick, as some issues might be little confusing (I'm just guessing).
Training is by far the most profitable business in hattrick. In fact, for most well-training teams it brings more money than all other sources of income bundled together! Let's just look at one hypothetic example. You've just bought ten 17 years old solid defenders for 300,000 ? a piece :). Let's say they'll train 9 weeks/level on average till they advance to world class, and you'll sell them for 4,500,000 ?. 42M ? in 54 weeks, that's 780,000 ? a week (well, lower that a bit - you need to pay salaries to those guys and that 10% transfer fee)! Can you beat that with tickets and sponsor income?

Have I told you that money is the most important thing in hattrick? Yes? Five times already? Well... let me tell you that for the sixth time! Money IS the most important factor. And since training is the best way to get greens, you should adjust other activities to it. ALL other activities. Your team's line-up should be determined by a training type you chose. Before you even start to think about a line-up that you're gonna use, think of what you want to get and what type of training you want to utilize. For example, you should not play 3-5-2 while training defenders, because you're wasting 2 training spots. You can either think about your league opponents (what tactics do they use? what are their strenghts and weaknesses? how could I take advantage of that?), choose a line-up and then an appropriate training type, OR choose a training type that you like and then adjust your tactics to it.
Your financial plans should be determined by training. Sure, why waste money on solid 17 yo's, when you could buy formidable or even outstanding 23 yo guy for the same price? I've been talking about it previously - your primary objective is to earn money. So before spedning money on buying better players that will not be trained, make sure that you've made everything that's possible to have a well training bunch of players (get good trainees and a good trainer).

Newbie stuff
Forget about this few words and go ahead to the next sub-chapter if you know the rules. Rules of training are simple: every friday (some countries train on thursdays) at a given time (e.g. 9 AM in Poland) a traing update program is being run. First of all, it checks a traing type that you've set -- and that's the only one moment that matters: you could have changed your training type million times since last friday... and nobody cares :). Then it checkes which players played their LAST game this week on an appropriate position.

Players that receive training will advance to next level after some time. In fact, they get better and better every week, but you just can't see their skill improve (well, you can see their value rising). Remember me talking about values at the begining of this guide? Good.
Amount of time needed for your players to increase in level depends on several things.

• training type. Goaltending is the fastest training, because you can only train 2 goalies. On the other hand, you can train 10 defenders, but it's slower (around 2x).
• coache's "coaching" level. It's his the most important skill. You just don't want to have a coach that has this skill below passable.
• player's age. Older players train slower. Pretty obvious, right? It's few % per year, but right now we just can't tell exactly.
• number of goaltending coaches (when you train keepers) or assistant coaches (outfielders). It's a good thing to have 10 assistants (or at least 9 and 1 of the opposite kind, because they influence players' form as well). Remember that every next specialist brings fewer benefits (and earns the same money), so you might want to save a bit on assistants (e.g. by hireing only 5) if you're short on money. But remember, saving money on training-related things is not what you want to do in the long run.
• player's last position. "Regular" trainees will receive full training, some guys might (depends on training type) get half of that (wingbacks when you train winger and wingers when you train playmaking), others get very little. Take look at this table, taken from official hattrick rules:

Training typeImproves...for...ImpairsGeneral(Form)(All who played a game during the week)(Goaltending)((Goalkeepers))StaminaStaminaAllFormSet PiecesSet PiecesAllDefendingDefendingDefenders (little slower than others) ((Others))ScoringScoringForwards ((others)) WingerWingerWingers - little faster than other (Wing backs) ((others))Shooting(Scoring)(Outfielders) ((Others))(Set Pieces)((All))Short passesPassingMidfielders and forwards ((Others))Playmaking MidfieldInner midfielders (Wingers) ((Others))GoaltendingGoaltendingGoalkeepers

Now, single brackets mean that the effect is smaller, double brackets mean it's very little. So e.g. when you train winger, your wingers will receive full training, wingbacks just a part of it (probably half) and all other players will get very little (usually nothing, as giving very little to everyone would put much more load on the servers... it's more convinient to give one player 3 cakes and nothing to the other 2 guys, than giving one cake to every one of them... yeah... that database- and baking-related issues :) ).

Who to train?
I'll write about it in the chapter about newbie starting tips.

Conclusion
Your general training strategy should be simple: choose a training type, get a good coach and 10 assistants, decide on what line-up(s) you're gonna use and buy as many trainable, affordable youngsters as you can train. And stick to that for the next couple of seasons, because you're not gonna earn much on buying passable playmakers and selling them as soon as they get to solid.

Training: general guidelines

1. Number of trainees.
The rule is simple - buy as many, as possible. Sometimes you'll want to play with slightly less players - just keep in mind that you're losing money! How many player should you buy and what tactics to use (just few words, more detailed info in sub-chapters about specific types of training).

• goalkeepers. It's a very comfortable training. Buy 2 guys and use any line-up you want!
• defenders. Preferably 5-4-1 (or even 5-3-2 with CA, but it's risky) or 4-5-1 on sundays if you don't want to loose too much in midfield. 5-4-1 (and again, you might choose 5-3-2) on wednesdays. That makes 9 or 10 young defenders to buy.
• inner midfielders. That's a bit more complicated. Generally you'll want 10 guys total (4 wingers and 6 inner midfielders). Any line-up with 5 midfielders will be fine (but since 3-5-2 is the king...).
• wingers. It's probably the hardest (and the most interesting) training type of all. You'll need 4 wingers and 4 wingbacks. Keep in mind that you weaken your midfield and defence significantly. Much more about it in sub-chapter about winger training.
• forwards. 3-4-3 (or 3-5-2 if you don't want to weaken midfield) on sundays and 3-4-3 on wednesdays. That's 5 or 6 players that will train.

This was just to let you know the general rule - train as many players as possible, most often twice as many as you can play in one game.

2. Age and quality of your trainees.
Right now it's rather unknown exactly what is the impact of player's age on the speed of training. Some people have claimed it's 1 week per 1 year of age (and I strongly believe it's bullcrap), some say the speed of training is reduced by 10% with each year (which is more likely to be the truth). I think that there is an age modifier which influences the speed. It's either hard-coded (e.g. 1 for 17 yo, 0.9 for 18, 0,8 for 19) or percentage-wise (10% less than the one year younger guy). Hopefully I'll make a tool where all ht players could provide me with training data... that would provide us with a lot of information. When it comes to player's strength
Generally you should invest in 17 years old solid or excellent players, but it has some exceptions.

• they might be too expensive for you. Yes, when you have had your team for not so long, you simply can't afford buying 17 years old solids. You either have to buy older or weaker players. Sometimes (just starting, mate?) older AND weaker (couple 18 passables should be affordable even for beginners).
• they might be too weak for you. Yes, when you play in a high division, your opponents would smash you if you had for example 3 solid forwards in your main squad. Answer is simple: buy brilliant 19's or world class 20's or someone relatively young and high on skill (it really depends on training type). Just try to buy a player who has ben quite effectively trained by that time. Got cash? Buy a U-20/national team pleyer! It really pays off. Experience is really important since HT 6.5 has been implemented. 30% salary paid by someone else doesn't hurt, either.

3. When to start?
Tough question. Youngsters are very expensive in the begining of the season and you simply might not want to pay that much (but it's easier to get them to U-20 later on!). On the other hand, buying 17 years old player too late is almost like buying 18 early in the season... . In most cases you'll just buy a new guy right after you sold someone who's just finished training. Oh... and make sure you don't waste too many weeks. It happens usually when you switch training type and need many youngsters at one time. Forget about buying ten 17 years old defenders in one week.

4. When to finish?.
How long should you train your players? Till they get brilliant? Magnificient? I can't help you much here. Do a little math: how much could I get for my player now? How much will I receive when he jumps to the next level? How much will I lose in between (add his salary and potential gains on this training spot that he's occupying). Just do the simple math. You'll get more, but you'll spend some cash (both real and time-related). At some point player is either too old (and trains too slowly) or isn't getting more valuable, as not too many people are willing to have a player who earns 200,000 ? weekly. Keep in mind that sometimes it's hard to sell a player (what's the chance that there will be someone who needs a great winger, has 10,000,000 spare ? and searches through your league's transfer market? Hopefully transfer ads at hottrick forum will solve the last problem (you don't waste your time on ht transfer ads either, do you?).

It's a nice idea to sell your players around the end of the season or just in the begining. Half of them don't train in the mid-season (unless you play a qualification game or you train wingers or inner midfielders - then some of your guys can play as wingbacks or wingers) - that's the first reason. Second is obvious - you want to get fresh meat as early in the season as possible. It tends to be rotten when bought too late.

A Third Division manager was addressing his team during a training session. Now, lads, he said, over the last few months, I've given you a lot of tips and advice on passing, dribbling, kicking and defensive play. The team nodded appreciately. Well, you can forget it all, said the coach, because we've just sold the bloody lot of you!

When looking at your transfer-listed player, others just can't see whether your player has just jumped to this level or he's received five trainings since then, right? Plan your training. By some conscious moves you can make your players to jump to the last desired level (let's say they're about even and you want to sell them once they reach magnificient) almost at the same time. For example, when training playmaking you can switch wingers with playmakers. You can choose which players play in the off season. When switching to another training type and selling your players, you might want to leave in your team those players that received the most trainings since the last skill advance.

5. Intensity.
In general, intensity influences three things: training speed, form and injury risk. It's practically impossible to measure its impact on those things (well, go ahead and set your intensity at 50%... after some time you'll tell what impact it makes on training speed... but I doubt there's any way to measure its impact on form and injury risk), so very little is know. I've had it set on 100% for a very long time (practically since I began playing) and I don't seem to have many injuries. There's also the fourth thing that can be adjusted by intensity: team spirit. I don't know much about it, as I don't want to slow down my training. That's what ht-rules say: "Significantly decreasing intensity can provide a 'one-time' boost to the team spirit of a team". On very special occasions (such as qualification games or cup finals) it might be a good idea to boost your TS in that way. But it should be done only when season is about to be finished and you don't have other important and hard to win games ahead, as your TS will drop again as soon as you increase the intensity.Just went through my mind: if you have decided to train at a lower rate, increase it to 100% before the last training (the one that preceedes the TS reset). Then, after TS is reset, lower it again... It might increase your TS a bit (note: rules say about "significat decrease...")
How is intensity implemented? Notice that when you enter a new value, it doesn't switch it immediately. Instead, it says "changing to 97%". It's been done in order to make taking advantage of the mechanism impossible. Otherwise you could set 0% for games (to decrease injury risk) and 100% for training. What's beneath that "changing to x%"? I believe there are two intensity values in the database. The current value and the one that will be used on friday's update. The current one is the same as was during the LAST training. So changing the intensity will have no effect on anything until friday and then the new value will become valid for the whole next week.

6. Number of assistants.
Assistants improve both training speed and form of appropriate players (assistant coaches look after outfielders and goaltending coaches look after those guys that wear gloves even during summer). There are different theories on how many assistant/goaltending coaches to employ. There's one thing for sure: you want to have 10 guys total, unless you're in a big financial trouble. Some people say it really messes up your outfielders'/keepers' form if there's no specialists of their kind and you should have at least one. Some people say it's not that important and having the 10th coach.

All I can tell is that for a long time I had 10 goaltending coaches and managed to win the Polish Cup and Ekstraklasa (Polish first league) with very little general training (haven't trained it in a loooong time). Then I switched to winger training, hired 10 assistant coaches and won the champ title again (no general training at all). Now is my third season in Ekstraklasa and somewhere around the 7th week I felt I might have to employ one goaltending coach, because my titanic keeper's (the best Dziobak ever) form dropped to weak and kept going even lower. Now it's 3 or 4 weeks later, the form went up to passable and I could fire that goaltending coach.

You can see economy calculators on several sites - notice how big is the difference between the first and the 10th economist's earnings. If the ratio is kept the same here, it's really not that important to have the 10th guy. Also, when switching your training to general, it might (depending on what players you have) be a good idea to fire one or two assistants and hire goaltending coaches. Why? First and second specialists give MUCH more, than 8th and 10th.
Good tip. Assistant coaches and goaltending coaches work only on fridays, right? You pay 1500 ? to fired specialists, right? You pay 1500 ? salaries on saturday night, right? So fire your players between friday (after training) and saturday (before the weekly update). Hire new ones between the weekly update and the next training. Switching will cost you nothing, since you will save money on wages. (note: some people misunderstood me. I mean you will not pay extra money for the operation, but of course you will still pay money for fireing your guys, which is the same amount as you would pay for wages on saturday)

7. When is traing lost?
Training might be lost in two cases:

• when you have too many specialists. You can only have 10 assistants of each kind. Goaltending coaches and assistants are an exception - you can have only 10 of those guys alltogether.
• when you mess up your game tactics in either game. In a "standard", 4-4-2 line-up, you have 4 defenders, 2 inner midfielders and 2 forwards. The rule is simple: you can have only one more guy in this positions. So you can have up to 5 defenders, 3 inner midfielders and 3 strikers. That makes for example 3-5-2 with 4 inners illegal. On the other hand, some unusual strategies, as 5-2-3 will not make you lose your training, but you will never get formation experience with them. Always check your formation at least twice, as sometimes you'll make terrible mistakes (there are rumors that there's a bug making your line-up not being saved properly sometimes, but I just don't believe that). Losing weekly training due to some accidental 2-6-2 costs you way too much money (happened to me few times :/ )

8. Off-season.
That's the schedule:

• sunday -- last league game.
• wednesday -- friendlies / second match of Cup's final in countries with 10920 or more teams.
• sunday -- qualification games (those that don't have to play go on holidays), seasonal bonuses.
• wednesday -- friendly games.
• saturday -- first youngster.
• sunday -- have few more drinks, no games this week, either.
• monday -- all players (except of those pulled last saturday) get older; TS, confidence and sponsors/supporters mood are being reset.
• wednesday -- first round of the Cup.
• sunday -- first league game.

As you have noticed, most of the teams have both mid-seasonal sundays off. Only those that play qualification games play during the first week and receive full training then. All other teams have to decide which players to field on wednesday and... what training type to choose. If you want to keep training same thing as usual, you might consider several factors when deciding who to field. Does your player have a good chance of playing in a national team? Don't let him waste the training! Do you feel that your younger players are much more worth investing in? Or maybe you want to give training to those older players? After all, they're the ones who influence your team's strength in more important games of every week.
Teams that train playmaking or cross pass (winger) have a nice bonus in the mid-season. You can field two "primary" trainees as wingers (playmaking) or wingbacks (winger). They'll receive half of the training. Teams that train scoring might want to choose shooting training. Less scoring for your primary guys, but you'll be sure everyone gets training. Plus you'll have set pieces trained a bit (if shooting trains scoring half fast as scoring training type, then you'll earn on this change). Some managers decide to train stamina in the off-season. Because you can train virtually all players that you want to and because form is not that important. Notice that after the first "halved" week yearly salaries are set for your players. And the form influences salaries. If you want to train stamina for just one week, do it during the first week. Note: after writing this I've been told that form does not influence salaries. I have to make it clear and ask ht-gods :) (thanks the_legend).

9. Secondary skills and skills that are not important at all.
Strangely, people seem to pay more for all-rounders. While it's relatively safe for players that will not be trained and ain't too good right now, on higher levels players with unneded skills tend to earn way too much money. So, when buying trainees, DO NOT go for guys with skills that they don't need. Scoring for non-forwards? Only if they have some exceptional set pieces. Winger for non-wing positions? Defending for scorers? Playmaking for defenders and forwards? Forget about it! BTW... offensive defenders and defensive forwards on high levels are a bad idea in 95% of the games (yes, I play offensive defenders in early cup games... but what real difference it makes? Just purely aesthetic... 10-0 looks nicer than 9-0 :) ). Why to pay more to your guys if this extra salary only turns into better performance in already won games?

10. Supply and demand.
Yes, you know the rule well: prices are low when many people sell and few people buy particular goods and high when the situation is reversed. If you look from this perspective at the training issue, there are two crucial events during the process: the purchase of a young trainee and the sale of the well trained, kick-butt player.

• the purchase. I have not made any research on the following statement, but we don't have to be very accurate here. Thesis is: there is an equal chance of pulling a solid midfielder and solid winger from the youth squad. Let's say that the universe of potential buyers consists of 1000 people. 26% of them train playmaking and 3% of them train winger. When training playmakers, you need 8-10 (let's make it 9) guys with good playmaking. Winger training requires you to buy 6 to 8 (rounded to 7) players with decent winger skill. 30 wiger trainers (3%) need 210 good wingers in a given period of time. 260 playmaking trainers (26%) need... 2340 good playmakers! The demand for playmakers is over 10x bigger, and even if my thesis is a bit wrong, even if there are more young guys with decent playmaking being born, their prices simply must be much higher. If you are a supporter, take look at training stats. If you're not, ask a friend to copy & paste it. These are the stats for the training that occured last friday (17.10.2003):

  Training TypeNumber of teamsPercentageGeneral4252623 %Stamina166239 %Set Pieces18431 %Defending2358313 %Scoring2178112 %Cross Pass (Winger)61873 %Shooting46633 %Short Passes103516 %Playmaking4823626 %Goaltending97255 %
  Now try to imagine what differences does it make when buying young players. At the begining of season 19 I bought young wingers. 3% of people train cross passes and most 17 years old solid wingers were sold at almost the same prices as their older equivalents. At that time solid playmakers were selling for at least 5x more cash.

• the sale. We'll look at this in a similar way. How many people sell particular kind of players? The above statistics might give you a pretty good idea. How many people buy? Let's take look at another statistics:
  line-upno. of teams3-5-277553-4-39544-4-24714-5-11725-4-11165-3-2704-3-327
  Source: htscb. I ommited all exotic tactics and those, that didn't have 11 players fielded (probably mostly due to red cards).
  As you can see, most people play 3-5-2. We can roughly estimate, that an average team utilizes one keeper, two wingbacks, one defender, three inner midfielders, one winger towards middle, one offensive winger and two forwards. I'll group defenders together, and join inners with winger towards middle as well (as there are no big differences for high-end teams... good teams just have to use almost "regular" inners as wingers towards middle). So an average team has 1 goalkeeper, 3 defenders, 4 inners, 1 winger and 2 forwards. But some positions are considered to be more important (inner midfielders), others less (e.g. defenders), thus most people spend much more money on playmakers than on defenders. It seems to be very hard to make a formula for demand level for particular players, but you can get a clue after considering several factors:
  • number of particular players being used (e.g. 3 defenders per team).
  • number of players being trained. It's not only about supply. If a team trains scorers, it will probably not buy trained scorers for itself (because they would most often keep their trainees).
  • common perception of particular position's importance. You'll often hear that it's worth to invest more in playmakers or goalkeepers. Many people would rather upgrade a keeper from world class to titanic first, then think about changing brilliant defenders to some better folks.

Now let's get to describing and analyzing all kinds of training... click "next" if you haven't fallen asleep yet.

Goaltending
The fastest training in town (but only a bit faster than cross passing, after HT 6.5 was introduced). Little investment needed, but profits aren't the biggest, either.
Training your keepers has quite important advantages and disadvantages.
advantages:

• tactical freedom. All tactics involve one keeper (Yey! America has been discovered again!) and you can choose any that you like. It's getting more and more important, as HT 6.5 is likely to create a bigger diversity (you might want to play differently against CA and AIM). For some months now tactical experience decreases at a slower rate and is gainer more quickly, which is also a very helpful modification for those that want to play around with different tactics.
• low youth cost. You only need two trainees. While young solid 17 years old goalkeepers might be a bit more expensive than outfielders, it's just 2 guys to be bought, instead of 6-10.
• the fastest (among "main" training types) training rate. It's only around 4 weeks for a 17 years old goalie to train a full level. That means quick increase in team quality and quick money to earn.
• clear view of the present goalkeeper quality. Notice that keepers have all other skills very low. That means they don't influence the value much. So it's only form and goaltedning skill that matter. You'll read a bit more about it below.
• smaller penalty when training general. General training also improves goaltending skill of your keepers, so you don't lose as much money. You should probably hire a few assistant coaches when doing so. Try to plan it, because you can fire goaltending coaches and hire assistants at no cost if you fire before the weekly economic update and hire after it (been talked-over earlier on).
• less training being lost. A minor advantage. When you decide to finish training and keep one trained guy in your team, just wait till the other jumps up to the next level and sell him. You will not end up selling some of the guys as they advance to the next levels and wasteing those precious training spots during the process of finishing.
• diversity. You only have two keepers, so your trainees will get injured less frequently, but if they do, you'll lose half of your trainees! But when training keepers, you can easily switch to some other training type for a while (passing, set pieces, general, etc.) or buy a near-advance goalkeeper from some other team.

disadvantages:

• low income. Would be great if it could earn you a bit more money. After few seasons of training you'll probably want to sell one of your guys and keep the other. After so many weeks of training you'll barely earn money to buy new trainees (plus you'll have a superb goalie). I used to train goalies (titanic Frank Hancock is still a part of my team).
• worse outfielders' form. There are 10 outfielders and only one goalkeeper. When training goaltending, you have none or very few assistant coaches, who take care of the form of the vast part of your squad. I've been training keepers for over 3 seasons, had no assistant coaches for the whole time and honestly, I didn't suffer too much. First season brought me an advance to the second league, second the Polish Cup and an advance to the Ekstraklasa, third - the National Championship :). Was a bit lucky, but still - the form of my players wasn't so much worse on average.
• low income. Again? Yes, it's just because that's so important and I don't want you to see a training type that has many advantages and only two disadvantages ;). Money is what you train for. And goalkeeper training gives you less money.

Other related stuff
Goalkeepers' value. As I have said, it's easy to quity precisely predict current quality of your goalkeeper, based on his form and value. You can make use of this. When buying a new keeper, try to get one that is as close to the next level as possible. When your main goalie gets injured, buy another one who will most likely jump to the next level in a week or two (well... you know how long will it take for your keeper to recover). If the new guy didn't manage to increase in skill, leave him and let him sit on a bench... eventually he'll play.
I hope that by the time you read it I've made a tool that you might use to check keepers' value.
If you want to raise your players' form a bit, an off-season (especially the second game) is a good time to do that. You only lose the difference between goaltending and general training for one guy (the other one can't play anyways). The form of all relevant players will be risen and you won't lose a training for both guys.

Defending
That's a totally different trainig. If goaltending was the South Pole, then Defending would be Greenland. Slow, but massive. Much money needed to be invested, long vegetation period, but pretty decent harvests. I expect it to be more popular when the new season begins, as many people are willing to switch to counter attacking.

advantages:

• profits! You train up to 10 guys at the same time. Make them good and see what it's like to be rich and powerful!
• bright future. There's a big chance that counter attacking will become an attractive alternative to currently dominating 3-5-2. And virtually all teams that are going to utilize it will use at least four defenders.
• less training being lost. When one of your guys get injured, you don't lose your training spot completely. Instead, make one of your inner midfielders (preferably defensive - with higher defending than passing) play there on wednesdays.
• tactical compatibility. It goes perfectly with 5-4-1 and CA setting. I think only playmaking and 3-5-2 with two wingers towards middle match as nicely.
• relatively low players' salaries. After the value reform that we've had few seasons ago, the value (and salary at the same time) of defenders dropped significantly. Just compare salaries of 6* defenders (with no unneded skills, preferably no other skills at all) and 6* strikers. That's important for two reasons: you will spend less money on your 10 guys and your fully trained players will be more attractive to others. Just keep in mind to buy youth players with low skills that are not needed! Defending, passing (and winger for four players) is all what you want your players to be decent at.
• relatively painless rotation. Selling a great defender and taking a bit younger player to the main squad is not as painful, as it is in the case of other training types, because you only switch 1/5 of your trained players.
• defendsive gameplay is fascinating :D. Lhp_pg (a well-known Polish players, who's been training defending for ages) read the "defendsive gameplay is boring" sentence (few lines below) and told me it's a scandal :D. He says it's great when one little goal might change the game's outcome. Tactics, tactics, tactics, he says. And I see his point :)

disadvantages:

• speed. Defending is the slowest training type. You have to wait for a long period of time before you can sell your players. Be patient.
• high initial costs. Defenders are cheap, maybe the cheapest players (young wingers used to be definitely the cheapest ones until this season. Still, you have 10 of them being trained. It might change in the near future, as counter attacking seems to be a strategy that many people would like to use.
• tactical predestination. You just have to play defensively over and over. It's sometimes uncomfortable and mostly boring as English breakfasts.
• increase in real value of young defenders. I think some people will switch do more defensive line-ups (still, it's only my prediction). Some of them will switch to training defending. That means 17 years old defenders are likely to be more expensive then they are now (end of season 20).

How to start?
Of course, all depends on how powerful you are already.

• If you have a good team and a lot of money, you should probably look for some already trained, but still young defenders for your main squad. You don't want to suffer because of having weak trainees, so the more power you need, the older and better guys you buy. Some of you
  should go for 19 years old outstanding-brilliant defenders, while others would rather buy 21 years old already top graded guys. The wednesday squad should probably consist of five 17 yo. solid-excellents.

• If you have a team where mostly solid-formidable players are fielded, just go for ten 17 yo. defenders, because they will not decrease your power too much.
• If you're new to the game, you obviously don't have enough resources to go for good youth. Think about 17 yo. passables or 18 yo. solids. Or maybe even worse guys, because you need to buy 10 players. Remember that defenders train very slowly (around 8 weeks for 17 yo. trainees with solid coach and 10 assistants) and it might be a better idea to buy 18 years old, but better players. Maybe you even should go for 18 yo passables.

It's a good idea to buy some players with winger skill (weak or better) to play as wingbacks. Also, passing should be great, even if you don't plan on playing CA, since some of your potential customers do...

Tactics for defending trainers
There are Kajet's notes below most listed tactics (if he had anything to add). Kajet is an outstanding tactician, manages 666 Orlow Kajeta (32642)... most likely by the time you read this he's already changed his team names. He changes is more frequently than he changes socks, that's a part of his long-term strategy ;). He also used the following rating system:

• Sure Loss
• Send Orders And Pray
• Might Be Useful
• Promising Tactic
• This Is It!

You'll see that he only gave full marks to 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 (3 inner mids) with CA. Let's hope that life will bring more variety that I can right now imagine :)
Back to defenders. The only thing that limits you is the number of playing defenders, which should be as high as possible. It obviously lowers your midfield and/or attack ratings. Let's see what you could do:

• 5-4-1 symmetrical, CA. Two offensive wingers and one forward should give you a decent fire power. Two inner midfielders to assure that you will not have to rely only on counter attacks. One repositioning (forward as extra central defender). IMHO might work well.
  Kajet's notes: You really need good wingers, unless you have an offensive coach. But if you do, then your defense may not be exactly what is required by the low ball posession you'll most often have. And unlike jerzy, I do think you'll usually have to rely on counterattacks to score, while having very little of the most important central attack... On the other hand, training 10 players with a good secondary skill (passing here) is cool, and other options are lacking. Rating: Might Be Useful, if you can buy youngsters with sufficient passing to survive and to add them real value.

• 5-4-1 asymmetrical, normal. Three inner midfielders for a decent midfield, but only 1 offensive winger and 1 forward might not be enough to score enough goals. Make sure you have offenisve inner midfileders with decent passing skill and a coach who's not defensive. Two repositionings (forward as extra inner midfield and winger as extra central defender). I'd try this tactic carefully, as weak attack may not be enough. People that tried to use it regularly told me it was a failure.
  Kajet's notes: This is for draw lovers. Ask lhp_pg. Send Orders And Pray.

• 5-3-2 symmetrical, CA. Risky, as we still don't know a lot about the power of CA. You'll almost totally depend on it. Two offensive wingers, two forwards for a very good attack ratings. One (preferably good) inner midfielder, just so your opponents will not have 10 chances every game. One repositioning (inner midfielder as extra central defender). I'm willing to check it out in the future.
  Kajet's notes: An attack slightly worse than with 3-5-2 and a total disaster in the midfield. Sure Loss. And a few draws ;)

• 5-2-3 (sic!) symmetrical, CA. Yes, you read it right. symmetrical 5-2-3 means no inner midfielders! It's rather a fun line-up, as there's one severe drawback of using it: you will not gain experience with this formation and you might lose goals because of it. Excellent defence, excellent attack, no midfield, no regular chances... just pure counter attacks and special events. Two repositionings (inner as extra central defender and another inner as extra forward). Edit: a friend has just told me that I have not stressed one thing clearly enough: this is just a fun tactic and should not be used in important games!
  Kajet's notes: Yeah, this tactic indeed is a joke. Sure Loss (and a sure laugh :-D).

• 4-5-1, asymmetrical, normal. Similar to 5-4-1. Some midfield power instead of defending and one trainee. Pretty safe tactics, could be used in leagues where many opponents train scoring and play very offensively. One offensive winger, one winger towards middle. One repositioning (forward as extra inner midfielder).
  Kajet's notes: If you plan to use two offensive wingers, Might Be Useful, but assymetrical 4-4-2 is much better for a defending trainer. If you prefer a winger towards middle, Send Orders And Pray, unless your fans love to see 0:0 (and often 0:1) on the scoreboard as they leave the stadium.

• 4-5-1, symmetrical, CA. That's counter attacking with a decent midfield power (if you don't want to resign from it completely). Just make sure not to play CA in games where you would have better midfield than your opponents! Two offensive wingers, one repositioning (forward as extra inner midfielder).
  Kajet's notes: Might Be Useful, since CA may give your meagre attack a few more chances. Again, assymetrical 4-4-2 looks better.

• 4-4-2 symmetrical, CA. More attack power, a bit worse defense and CA ability, one trainee less than in 5-4-1/CA. Both wingers offensive, no repositionings.
  Kajet's notes: Defence isn't bound to be good enough to stop all the opponent attacks. I don't think the era of 3 inner midfielders is sooo over. Send Orders And Pray.

• 4-4-2 asymmetrical, CA. Similar to the above, only you abandon one wing for some midfield power. Two repositionings (winger as extra forward and forward as extra inner midfield).
  Kajet's notes: The counterattack is a nice addition to the normally useful assymetric 4-4-2. This Is It!.

• 4-4-2 asymmetrical, normal. Exactly as above, only without CA.
  Kajet's notes: Promising Tactic.

• 4-3-3 symmetrical, CA. Might be very interesting option. Very weak midfield and extremely strong attack. Just like 5-3-2, only some attack power gained at the cost of defense/CA ability. One repositioning (inner as extra forward).
  Kajet's notes: Why not three inner midfielders, which Might Be Useful? With one inner midfielder and four defenders in the back, losing 4 goals a match isn't fun, and you won't often score on 4 counters. The opponent's attack and defence would have to be terrible, and not just yours good. Sure Loss.

• 4-3-3 three inners, CA. LOL... I thought about it one hour ago and then read kajet's note to the above tactic :D. Sounds promising (good stats everywhere except your wing attacks), only there's one bad thing. You need 3 repositionings (defender as extra inner, winger as extra central defender and winger as extra forward).
  Kajet's notes: none (hasn't read it yet).

• 4-3-3 symmetrical #2, CA. Line-up just like symmetrical, only winger plays towards middle. Stats similar to 4-3-3 with three inners (Bjorn once said that 2 extra repositionings are not worth switching winger towards middle to inner midfielder. I must say I'm not entirely convinced, looking at the stars).
  Kajet's notes: none (hasn't read it yet).

• 4-3-3, asymmetrical, CA. Another variation. Two inners and one offensive winger. Just one repositioning (winger as extra forward). Some midfield power (so that you don't rely on CA entirely), great central attack, good attack on one wing.
  Kajet's notes: none (hasn't read it yet).

• 3-5-2, normal. Yeah, sure... some people do that now - play regular 3-5-2 (with all variations of wingers) and train defenders. You lose 2 trainees, you keep using this boring line-up. Yuck!
  Kajet's notes: Sure Loss (in a season or two, given that other teams train normally).

Note: whenever I say symmetrical, I mean a line-up with two wingers. Whenever I say asymmetrical, I mean a line-up where one of your wingers is repositioned.

Let's talk about training being used by over one-fourth of all hattrickers now...