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South Africa, the sleeping giant of Africa?

Written by Reminiscence

Former South African NT and current Finnish U21 Head coach talks about how we can make South Africa into a powerhouse in African NT competitions.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lamoracke (or Lamo) and I used to coach the South African NT for two terms. The highlight of these campaigns was the silver medal in the Africa Cup 35 edition which also was the first ever medal for South African NT. I always wanted to coach the Finnish NT/U21, but now that I did that as well it’s time for me to come back to South Africa and try to help us reach the wins we deserve!

Why do I believe that South Africa could be a powerhouse in Africa?

This is simply due to our size. At the time I’m writing this South Africa is the largest league in Africa with 398 active teams. The only other leagues with over 200 active teams in Africa are Nigeria (296) and Sao Tome and Principe (239). We have over 100 active teams more than the next largest rival and 150 more than 3rd largest. Everyone else has 250+ teams less than us!

Why does this matter?

In Hattrick, each team can either call the scouts of their youth academy to get a new youth player who is 15 or 16 years old or alternatively to promote one player from the football school once a week. These players are essentially the player production for each league. Since it’s completely random how good or bad these players are, the more players you produce each week the higher the chances to find someone really good. This is where we hold a clear advantage when compared to our African competition. If we want to succeed with our national teams we need to use these resources better.

How do we do it?

There are two different things we need to do. First one is scouting. Each NT can nominate 7 scouts in game who can nominate players to the prospect list of their respective NT’s and see the skills of these players this way. There are also 3rd party websites to help scouting, most notably (https://hattrickportal.pro) and (https://www.rate-my.academy). Scouts are responsible for finding the most promising players for the NT and instructing their owners about optimal training for the NT. But there is only so much that a scout can do without managers willing to help the NT and train the players according to target skills for the NT. We need both scouts and active trainers to help build a strong South African U21/NT together!

What’s in it for me?

Bink wrote a wonderful HT-Press article about this a few years ago (21897). For a TL:DR version, it is quite an amazing feeling when a homegrown player is the cornerstone for your nations NT and it can also help you reach new heights with your own team! Also working for any NT can provide a lot more things to do and experience in Hattrick. Binks article has other tips for training etc. as well and most of them are still accurate, so I recommend reading it as well!

Another point to add is that doing a short training stint for the U21 NT is a great way to build some bank to kickstart your own plans later on. Don’t hesitate to ask more about this!

Where can I join?

The best way to get started is to join the NT federations U21:(118687) and NT:(101905). Then you can either find more information over there or contact someone from the NT staff to get started. Even users without supporter are allowed to join this federations, so anyone can join! You can also contact the NT staff or post at (17541349.1) to let us know you would be willing to train talent for the U21 or National team. If you want to do it solo you can also find target skills for U21 players at (17541348.1) and start training South African talent towards those targets!