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South Africa needs you

Scrit di HPE-Bink286

Former England NT manager and South Africa's Assistant Coach talks about how you can help your team and the National Team at the same time.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Bink.

I live on Durban Road in London, was born & raised in Zimbabwe and have a half-sister that lives in Cape Town.

My parents both lived in South Africa before they moved to Zim, and they went back there for a short while before emigrating to Australia. So. I have 3 teams in hattrick. One in England where I live, one in Australia and one in South Africa.

But enough about me.

There are many ways to play hattrick. There's no wrong way, just to enjoy yourself is the important thing, as your virtual team does its best for you every week. There is, however, a way to play the game that can help your own team get stronger that also helps the National Team.

What this entails, is a period of "perfect training" for 10-12 seasons and then a period of team progression over 4-6 seasons. In the perfect training phase you accumulate team resources, and in the team progression phase you use those resources.

Eeesh. You may think to yourself. That is a very long time?

Yes. It is. But this is how long it takes your 17 year old youth pull to reach 34-35. This is the pace of the game and whilst you can try to find shortcuts by selling our quite rare flag youth pulls for big Rands, or even skill trading players, there is no player to make your fans dance and sing like a homegrown player that is selected for the National Team. NT experience also improves the player performance for your club, from his experience bonus.

Over the last 3 months I have spoken to many managers all over the world who are training (and in some cases no longer training) our best players, and very few are giving those players priority and "perfect training" and sometimes have no plans to make them into the potential players they could become.

What South Africa needs is you. Managers who care about their best players, about their country and who want their players to become legends for both their team and their country.

What about the wages?

If you are worried about wages, when they reach NT levels, you shouldn't. We are not looking for mono-skilled Divine primary skilled players, only GK are required to have a Divine primary skill, and double mythical are good for several positions, with manageable wages that help your team win games, attracting more fans and encouraging bigger revenue streams.

So what is this "perfect training"?

It is this:- You train with an excellent coach, using 2 level 5 assistant coaches and a level 5 medic. You train at 10% stamina.

Agh man, you must be joking? An excellent coach is too many Rands, surely?

No. Other than your stadium size (for improved revenue) the coach is the next best investment you can make. The speed of training is what makes your trainees more valuable, faster. You can buy old players with mythical plus experience and inadequate leadership for very few Rand, circa R6m is all. The higher the experience the cheaper it will be to convert them 16 weeks after you buy. R18m is the approximate conversion cost for a mythical experience, and closer to R12m for Divine+1 experience.

But what about team spirit? High leadership is the most important part of a coach isn't it?

Yes. But only when you have a team that can really benefit from that. Otherwise, you have great Team Spirit with a team of half trained players that could easily run out of talent before you win anything with them,

But what about the team progression? At this low stamina it will struggle to progress for many many seasons?

Yes. It will, but there is already a huge gulf between the teams in II and III and it isn't that easy to jump from IV to III. The struggle is already real.

What about the bafana? These players in my youth academy?

I recommend 3 YA scouts. One scout for a preferred position you want to train, and 2 for 'any player'. Accept any 15 year old with a speciality, accept any player with a solid+ primary (even if 16). Play in a 4 team league and join a new one (or start a new one that starts 2 days after your old one ends). Read this (17350846.1) and train them well. Promote them at age 17/0 or as soon as you can, as they train faster in the 1st team.

Use this tool (http://www.fantamondi.it/HTMS/index.php?page=htmspoints&lang=en&action=calc) to calculate the HTMS of your youth player. If he has above 2050 (or 1850 for GK) and a speciality he should be getting "perfect training" from the first training update after you promote him. Even players with the right speciality for their position with above 1950 HTMS (if trained perfectly) can also become wonderful players for you and your country.

Use this calculator to plan your 1st team training (https://hattrickportal.pro/PlayerTrainingCalc.aspx) Play around with stamina and number of assistants (2x level 5 is '10' for the calculator).

A player like that I can sell for big Rands. Why bother to train him myself, when I can improve the team by selling?

4 reasons:-

1. Home Grown bonus. A home grown player gets 0.5 of a level, added to all skills compared to one that you bought that has been with you long enough to have divine loyalty.

2. Wages. South African born cost less because they don't have the foreign player tax, and if they play for the National Team you get wage rebates. That is very handy when you want to buy in a supporting team of top players for when you increase the stamina for your home grown ones.

3. Love. Yes it is just a computer game, but if you are human, you get attached to the bafana that grow into men, even more so when they become National Team legends.

4. Trust. As soon as he is sold, the chances of the buyer giving him "perfect training" is less than 5%.

My team is already in the top 2 divisions and is too strong to think about this now?

Yes. But you could consider taking this approach when your current players are too old and you need to start a rebuild.

So suppose I get this home grown trainee and start training him. What do I do next?

Most important, every manager in South Africa is encouraged to add their team to the tracker and to enable automatic updates. If the NT scouts cannot see your player they cannot contact you to discuss the plan. Please, please, please sign in as soon as you finish reading this, using your usual log in, and enable automatic updates?

(http://hattrickportal.pro/Tracker)

If you need answers asap, and cannot wait for a scout, go to the U21 or NT page and send a message to a scout or manager who can help. You can ht-message me too.

Consider having a look-see at the transfer list and to find that old guy who could become your excellent coach one day. They are cheap, it is the conversion that uses more money, that is unless you prefer to invest more on very high experience for the cheaper conversion later, then it may cost you a little more.

Buy South African. Train South African.

For sure. Train non South African only for the profit, and focus on perfect training until it is time to increase stamina in order to push the team forward, at the time your player is good enough to be considered for National Team (ideally age 28-29).

Join the new Offsite community

ht-mail myself or Reminiscence for an invite to the South African Slack(ers) Community. There's a free app you can download for mobile users and it's also available on the web. No fees. Here you can ask questions and get involved with seeing the National Team discussions in private, and learn from experienced users about how to make more of your team and how to help the National Team at the same time.

Disclaimer

My 3 ht-teams all utilize "perfect training". I have NT prospects in all 3. I have done this rotation before, twice, reaching the Semi-Finals of the English Cup and reaching the EPL the first time, and winning the English Cup and finishing runners up in the EPL the second time. Training players perfectly is no guarantee of club success, you will always need luck and a little bit of 'clever'.

You may choose a different path to follow, and you might even see more wildlife on the way, but if you have a team in South Africa, then the path I am suggesting is one that will make the drums in your heart beat a little faster.

Thanks for reading this far, and remember, the National Team needs you and you need to support the National Team. The forum is here. (17367985.1) All supporters are welcome.