well darn, Vince. We woulda loved to have you with us.

We had our first training bump...a newly bought winger prospect

Aroldo Crotti from solid to excellent wing

Nice work, deacon! My goalie popped to excellent this past week too on the second team.

Really looking forward to this season to see how my first team does in the new IV. It's rated right now the 57 of 64 and according to the ELO stat I'm the best team in it.

I even switched out my old wretched leadership coach for a shiny new solid leadership coach just to make sure I have some good TS this season.

Lost to an ML team last season in round 7 or 8 of the cup and felt like I should have won it.

This season maybe!

Tell

Won my first game against the 2nd place team from last year.

My league started out as the 2 out of 256 series in V, so it is going to be a tough road. We dropped down to number 4 after this round of games.

It's always fun to get HTRF'd and lose your first home game of the season. It's doubly fun when you know it takes away pretty much any chance you have of winning the series

SI

What level do you sell your keepers at nowadays (when doing keeper training)? What's the sweet spot?

I am not sure, since I don't sell keepers.

But I would recommend capping them at about brilliant and then adding defense to make them much more valuable $$$ wise.

You may want to train defending first and keeper second. I am not up to-date on keeper training.

In other news, HT is down all day so I am not sure what I am going to do to pass the day.

Just bought a SN PM/SN winger to add to my attack. If all players are in good form, I may be able to put a divine attack on one side.

Still looking for an American born 19-21 TDF though.

Good luck with that. Those are darn expensive (TDFs)

I need to sell a 17.00 solid PM/inad pass (one of my best youth guys in quite a while) today but I may be out of luck :(

SI

Yea and they are rare, especially one that fits my criteria of American, SN+ PM, decent passing, and young enough where I can put some scoring on him.

Considering SN or Titanic just aren't that expensive wage-wise, why limit yourself to Americans? I don't really feel player wages until they hit ET.

It really limits your pool to draw from and saving $4K per week (20% on a $20K) wage is wiped out by the fact that you have to overpay for an American instead of shopping for the best deal.

SI

I could do that and I have looked into it. But I have a roster of all Americans (excluding my coach, who will be replaced at the end of the year most likely). I really didn't do it for the wage factor, more along of the lines that I just thought it was cool.

In other news, my V series is now ranked as the toughest V series in all of the US. I am not sure how HT does those rankings though.

I'm thinking of signing up for Platinum supporter to get some of the Hippos into the Hall of Fame quicker before I retire the team.

Any thoughts on what to do with a second team for a year? It's like an extra $10 a year so I would probably get that out of just tooling around with the second team alone. Any particularly interesting training ideas? Or how about countries or challenges to do?

SI

Still think it would be fun to have a division of just fofc teams.

Your second team can't be in the same country as the first, tho, right?

SI

Second team can be anywhere. It cannot be in the same SERIES as your first team, nor meet in any other official competition. So no Cup or qualification matches either.

Tell

An FOFC series would be fun. I'm a bit concerned that we'll just keep promoting out of there and it will just be bots but I could be open to it.

My other choice is to go grab a team in a small country. I've always wondered what it was like to be on the other side of flag chasing.

SI

I figure I'll decide this weekend at some point.

SI

We can do it another country. We would have to find a way to avoid autopromotion and have to through the qualifier, but I think it would be doable.

Still have the ability to do another team. How many teams are in the FOFC series in the USA and how many will actually still be down there in a couple of seasons?

SI

Just two, I think. Not sure who will still be in it going forward. My team is second season. Deacon's is in it's first season. We have one other team in the series as well who could probably win the series since I've not bothered to buy anyone other than two keeper trainees since inception.

Tell

I lost in round 10 in OT at home :(

I was really hoping to win and get that "advanced past round 10 in the cup" achievement

SI

I ended up creating a team in Angola, should someone need that flag. I'm going to try to get a bunch of the silly achievements (nice, nasty, honest, dishonest, veteran, youthful, etc) and see where I'm at.

Anyone know where to find nice and nasty squad members, for instance? There doesn't appear to be anything to search them in the transfer interface and I couldn't find any feds catering to that but maybe I just wasn't keying on the right words.

SI

There is a good chance that I will finish with enough points/GD to auto-promote, but not promote because I finished 2nd in the toughest V series.

Important win there, last weekend. I suppose you should believe in miracles and hope the series leader chokes on Sunday!

For the 3rd straight season since relegating, 2nd in III.5. Bummer yet again

SI

Leaning heavily on a 'magical' defense, anchored by our star player Gaylord Younger from the USA, we surprisingly struggled for a long time, still sitting in a relegation spot 3 games from the end. But Maassluis FC bounced back with a strong finish and even virtually ranked 2nd during the final round of games. It didn't last, so we finished the season in 3rd place, our highest finish in team history after three straight 6th place finishes in the VIth.

I was thinking about playing again and started poking around after I logged in to keep my zombie team active. I'm shocked at how expensive supporter is now. Close to $90/yr for the gold level which seems about equivalent to the package before they moved to the three tiers. That pretty much killed my interest

I still have a team there. Logging is once in a while not doing much.

My team has been in the race for a division championship in the VIth series this season, but a couple of 1-0 up late qualiser games have done us in and we're out of contention going into the last round.

I haven't looked since they bumped up the price. That said, I've been sputtering around, thinking about quitting and it sounds like when my supporter runs out is a good time to do it.

SI

I am auto-promoting from the 106th ranked series in V. I average 80 stars ( D-29, M- 35, A- 16). I play a regular 3-5-2 since I haven't cared enough to read-up on the current state of the game. My plan was to take my money on hand and see how far I could get before topping out or going broke.

What are my chances to stay-up in a IV series? I still have $71 million banked but the new finance stuff could really curtail my efforts, though I haven't really figured out what they entail.

I haven't read anywhere about the specifics of the new finance stuff but if you wanted to make a strong team then now is probably the time to go buying because it sounds like they're really going to clamp down on anything above $20M. I suspect it will be some sort of mechanism where your money goes into the bond system and only $1M per week or something like that can be released back into your standard money pool.

SI

Oh wow.

Just got my Mod and CHPP admin hats removed which is about right as I haven't done anything for Hattrick backstage activities for about 2 years. Thing is, this will remove me my free supporter platinum package. I am still logging in every once in a while to keep the team alive, but that's just about it.

That was nice while it lasted.

Ugh, lost in the first round of the cup. :(

Hippos plow on but Damian Edelmann did not have a single goal :( Each of the last 3 years, he's been a statistical freak, piling up huge goal totals in the first few weeks of the cup. He finished just outside the top 10 last season, first the year before that, and second the year before that. I realize there's some really odd luck involved there as I wasn't making particularly deep cup runs. But it always made for a fun early season story.

My Angola team is one-and-done. BTW, if anyone wants an Angola flag, let me know.

SI

Nice game I love it. Been here since 2008 or so and seems that this year finally I could push for a series VI champion.

It took awhile for my team to get to IV, but we are humming along now. We played the second best team in our series and beat them 4-2 at home while posting a 404 rating. This is with us pulling back at the end as well as not PIC'ing.

That was the third highest rating in all of US Division IV. The team I beat posted the 5th.

I am not sure if we will promote to III or not. I have a couple of upgrades I need to make but don't really have the money to do it.

We unofficially won our series yesterday. We are now up 4 points with one game to go and thus can't be caught.

We are above the auto-promotion line. We go into next week with a home match against the third place team. We have PIC'd the last two matches, so TOS is in great shape.

We will probably go for glory and MOTS that game and just try to auto-promote. It is a bit risky but I don't know what our chances would be like in a qualifier.

Yeah we got our auto-promotion to Vth Spanish division after an easy rout 3-0 playing MOTS against the 3rd qualified! Now is time to turn the corner on some veteran players and buy their replacement, how do you do that man? You are creating your own players from the academy? Or do you use step, or trading?

Well, we did it. We had a late flick-in in the 81st minute to send us through. We are going up to III.2. It will be a serious challenge to stay in that league. But we made it to III.

I was on an academy kick for awhile. I was training FTW and developed several good players. I kept a couple and shipped the rest off for profit.

Now I am training defensive midfielders. This season, we pretty much exclusively trained playmaking. Next season, it will likely be defending.

The key is to just always have some sort of long-term plan for your team and how you are going to finance it. The team I have now doesn't really have a chance of getting into II, so I will have to blow it up at some point and try again.

I am also not sure if I am seeing a worthwhile return for training DMs. While they make your team better, it seems difficult to make much money off of them because the talented prospects are expensive and they don't really sell for much more money down the road.

It sounds a really good strategy, I am going to train basic midfielders for a while, I am in the V.58 now and it´s a hell of a group.... I will be lucky if I resist here one year meanwhile trainning new midfielders and replace the forwards... :banghead::banghead::banghead:

My team is now officially owner-less. I haven't logged into hattrick for 7+ weeks.

Congratulations

yeah, the same

Still going strong here. Although I was late to the party compared to y'all.

Today my Maassluis FC pulled a miraculous victory in the 4th round of the national Cup (mind you, not one of those consolation cups), after beating a team 3 divisions higher. Next up is a 5th round clash against a team in Eredivisie. I think that's pretty awesome for a 6th tier club. :banana:

Congrats! Keep pushing! !

We bowed out, 2-0 loss at home, against their starting 11 (http://www93.hattrick.org/Club/Match...dReport=False). Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

We made it to round 7 of the cup, which is the furthest that I have made it with either my current team or my older team during the FOFC heyday. We have a decent chance of beating the team we play next week as well.

But after this run, I need to blow the team up and try to build something capable of competing in III.

Hey GoldenEagle!

Been a long time. I just signed back up after a small 9 1/2 year layoff! It's good to see a least a couple people from FOFC are still playing. Hell, I wish i hadn't quit back in 2006, i had just gotten 4th in II.4 and had a young, studly team! I'd probably have a few championships at this point!

I see the game has changed quite a bit. Training is faster, daytrading is long gone (yay!), and players are much more multi-dimensional. I'm looking forward building up the Maniaical Misfitz again!

What's your manager/team name again? I'm Havok1212.

My team in the Arkansans Cobras and my manager name is timbrice14.

We are currently in IV, but there is a pretty good chance we auto-promote back up to III.

Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions about the new features.

Will do! :)

Thanks!

We finished the season with 40 points, good enough for the 3rd highest total in all of IV and of course auto-promotion. If my research is right, we are heading to III.16.

I need to sit down and have a think about my team. My goal is to stay in III this time around.

That's awesome. I keep trying to survive in V while retooling :)

Just starting back up. I have a desk job, where I work from 630 - 330 every day and I am on the phone, so I get to do some things with the game I didn't have the free time for.

Eagle Mountain Rangers.

Starting back up as well.

Username: vexroid

Team: NE Oklahoma Sidekicks

Still playing. My team choked a promotion in the 14th game of last season, losing at a bottom feeder. I'm still non-amused about this bunch of chokers. :rant:

I can boast an unbeaten league season, only to finish second and miss out on a chance of a qualifier.

:banghead:

I have recently gotten back into the game in a very casual sense. Spent an evening geeking out about my team's kits, bought some trainees, and installed a 3-4-3 run-and-shoot. I fully intend to casually check performance as I go, and forget about the team often, but I love that the iPhone app lets me manage just about everything on the team.

Unfortunately, the team I took over was only recently abandoned and was wrecking shop in USA division VI, so after one game with me at the helm we auto-promoted to what looks like a very top-heavy V series. We can (and already have) beat the other promotee, but I envision a 0% chance of avoiding a qualifier, if not outright relegation. I'm not quite sure that wouldn't be the best course of action, honestly.

Dola - Willow Glen Wreckers, USA V.146

Fired this up thanks to the iPhone app.

User name: dgonz22
Team: Royal Knights FC

I didn't plan on quitting, but getting the android app has made it a lot easier to do the daily/weekly tasks.

I basically wandered back in recently, myself. Have a team tearing up its US level VI league, we should run the table and promote.

Chesapeake Chaingang USA (229607)
Maryland, VI.727

I just jumped back in too, and there's definitely a lot of new stuff here since I last played... is there any FOFC group for friendlies, or anyone interested in doing a youth league? South End Patriots in VI.219, and my team is also already 11-0-0 on the season so I'll likely be auto-promoting to get worked over in V before I can build my team up. Fwiw, is there any dominant formation or skill? I'm leaning towards playing a 4-5-1 or 3-5-2 and training playmaking, but I want to make sure that's a smart strategy before going out and buying some potential trainees.

Also, I've been playing a similar game called Rocking Soccer too (I know several FOFC'ers were playing the companion tennis game.) Paradise Island FC in the Bahamas there - if there are other FOFC'ers I'll start a separate thread.

Still going strong here. The legendary USA born Gaylord Younger has left Maassluis FC for the Canadian III.11 division.

About to promote to the V Spanish Division, 2 more games and a potential Promotion game... Can't wait for Saturday.

Where are you playing?

All or nothing game for Maassluis FC this Sunday. Second chance to win in VI and qualify for the promotion/relegation game to V, with a shot the finally get out of this 'group of death'.

In first in U.S. Div V.216 (I think that's the number, anyway) and play a bot in the last week.

Not in auto-promote position so will also play a promotion game to go to IV.

Team name is Fear of God and I still have not really been trying too hard- still have the old kind of $25,000/week farm team, not an actual team.

Choked again, 0-2 loss at home. This could have been my last game in this game. :rant:

Is this thing still on?

Still playing. Closing in on finally promoting to the Dutch Vth after far too many 2nd place finishes. Now 38yo wing back Toine Agter is still hanging around since my first season and still regularly playing.

Today I had the urge to check this game out again after so many years, my team was gone, of course, but I setup a new team and it feels like a different game. Are people still playing? Enjoying? Is there something better out there?

Hey Doug,

I am still playing. I worked my team all the way up to III but could never get over the hump. We dropped down to IV a few seasons ago and haven't been able to get back up.

I have lost a little bit of interested in the game. I even had a couple of walkovers where I forgot to submit a lineup. I spent a ton of money last summer and didn't really get better.

I am thinking of selling all my players and doing a home grown only type thing. We would drop to VI pretty quickly I am afraid, but I think it would be fun and interesting.

Playing here as well...but clearly lost my team a while back. Joined back about 2 years ago and I'm setting lineups and all. The app helps me stay involved...but I often forget about my youth team.

I decided when I returned to make it more of an economic model...I'm trying to make money, not spend it. I try to never go below 1-2 million.

Currently training a keeper that might make the U-20 and another keeper in my youth squad is destined for it as well. He's 15 as I recall and a solid keeper with poor defense.

I don't strive for promotion or first place...I strive for money lol.

I'm looking to possibly switch series. Anyone in a V series? I don't care about the level of competition.

The app has been a much easier way to set lineups than the website's interface ever was (even with the relatively new system). There are a couple of things the app doesn't do (most notably highlight players that already played during the week, suggest best positions for the player and predict the rating for a player), but I still prefer the quickness of the app.

It certainly helped me to reshuffle or redo my lineups more often than I used to, keeping me involved much easier.

Amen to that.

I started at HT thread in the dynasty forum if anyone is interested in reading it.

Yep yep.

cc fc timed out quite a bit ago, but we topped out at winning iii.14, i think, and losing in the promotion game, and with 32+ million in the bank but lost interest with kids and what not.. thinking baout going back..

I've rejoined after like a million years away, no idea if I'll keep up with it, but I dropped all my fantasy leagues after the end of last year and so it might be worth it. Sunnyside Uptowners are the name.

It appears that I'm about to lose interest. Missed out on promotion last season by random bad luck and now am preparing for a qualifier not to relegate back to the level my team was stuck in for years (real time). I haven't bothered to arrange friendlies for the last week or 3. Still set my lineup at some point during the week, because, you know, a smartphone makes that slightly easier.

I actually had signed again up for a team a few months ago, but played for about 2 days.

After a silly high number of draws, my team ended up forced to play a qualifier to stay in the Vth and we ended up getting completely destroyed, with a couple of backups forced into action. But the real news is that I missed that we had to play that qualifier today. It wouldn't have mattered, we spent all our MOTS opportunities in the last bunch of chocked games. All this so shortly after chocking championship with promotion to the IVth not so long ago...
This might be the end of it for me.

I won in the promotion game 2-4 and got promoted to Spain IV!!!

I didn't know it were people playing Hattrick here!

I knew the numbers had to be down for at least USA users. The latest election for the NT wrapped up yesterday I believe. The winner had less than 40 votes. I had about 180 votes or more in all three of the elections I ran in back in 2003/4.

Hey guys - I'm still playing away! I have to admit, I'm really really hooked. I have 3 teams now and I'm loving every minute. I really enjoy the long-term team building aspect of it even more so then i did way back in 2003 when we all got started!

My team made it to the Major League this season if you can believe it! Hopefully i can make the FOFC proud by winning a USA Cup or and Major League title over the next 5 seasons or so before my team ages out and i have to rebuild.

Wow man,

That's awesome!! Best of luck!!

So much for that app saving the team. Now that the app has turned into nearly useless (I haven't been able to change lineups for like 2 months now), my interest has plummeted to an all time low.

Still this. I suppose the developers have given up as well. At least on the adroid app. C'est la vie.

My team is a couple of weeks away from becoming a bot team.
I reported my problems, the admin that handled it said I was the first to report it. Well duh, I was the first with other issues that got fixed before, I'd expect some credibility here. But no, this admin didn't. (Re-install, blabla, bullshit). I gave up.
So it goes. *shrug*

Sorry man. The only issue I've had lately is that my magical SP taker didn't take a shot when the game went to penalty kicks. I mean, really?

I've drifted back to the game after losing interest about 10 years ago. Youth teams are new to me. Anyone aware of a decent (and current) guide for starting one up effectively that is better and deeper than the wiki?

I train keepers, so I've essentially told my guys to look for keepers until I have a decent crop. I've got three in the YS right now. I've switched them to look for forwards and train that as a secondary skill. I'll probably do that until one or two of the guys clear out and then I'll move back to hunting for keepers.

I rotate guys around each match until I find something they're good at. I keep them there after that. If they ain't good at anything I kindly show them the door.

Good news, no matches in HT have been cancelled. We're still going strong.

I finally got the "Your team is gone" message.
The poll/question that is sent when you haven't been active long enough asks why you left, but didn't provide the option that fit my reasons. I had to settle with "other", sadly without the opportunity to describe all of the above. So it goes. *shrug*