Your overall tasks

Your new team

Region and weather

Your team belongs to region, a region which you probably have a relationship with. Regions are there so you can check out other people from the same area as you. Another important function is that each region has its own weather. No regions have better weather than others, all regions are equally good so you don't have to worry about making a bad choice.

Weather affects a couple of things, but most importantly attendance (fewer people will watch your games when it's raining) and player performance. On the "Region" page you can see what the weather is like today and a weather forecast for tomorrow. If the sun shines today, it's more likely (compared to other weather types) that it will also shine tomorrow, so weather isn't completely random.

If you want, you can change regions in between seasons. It will, however, cost you 10 000 US$ and 3% of your fans.

Our best piece of advice

How good is your player?

In real life you say a soccer player is an "OK winger" or a "really good defender" when you see him play. In Hattrick, we do the same to describe how good players are. We use different levels (not only for players, but for other measurements as well), and the scale goes from non-existent (0), to divine (20). You can see the full denomination scales in our appendix.

Different types of players need to concentrate on different skills.

All players don't need to be good in every skill; Stamina is the only skill that affects everyone.   It is beneficial to have a player with a high main skill (other than stamina), but you will get the most out of your players if they are proficient in many skills (relevant to the position they play).   Which skills a player will use depends on the position they will play.

Goalkeepers:

Central defenders (CD):

Wing backs (WB):

Inner Midfielders (IM):

Wingers (W):

Forwards (FW):

Changes in skills

Age

Personality

Experience

Players who have played many important matches gain experience, and this experience helps them in various ways in future games. Being experienced can influence special events to score or concede goals, and help team avoid disorganization, among other things. We track experience as a separate value, one which is not related to the skills of a player. Every match played, and every type of match played, has a different effect on how quickly a player gains experience. A player typically needs about 100 experience points to reach a new level of experience. The points earned for each match type are presented in the following table.

Total Skill Index (TSI)

Form

The better form a player is in, the better he will perform. It's not about the physical context though; it has nothing to do with how well trained a player is. Form in Hattrick reflects a combination of aspects affecting whether a player will perform at his full potential, like for example how his private situation in life is at the moment.

On the player page you can see a player's "current form". It's the figure applied for matches. An "excellent" player in "wretched" form is usually worse off than a "passable" player in "solid" form for example. Current form is negatively affected by the amount of stamina training in the team; the more stamina you train (percentage-wise) the more negative effect.

Additionally, there's a hidden "background form", which is used to compute where the player's form is heading. Each week, during training, the current form of every player will change, moving toward the hidden background form. Current form is not changed at once to the figure of background form. Instead it moves in steps over several weeks, though the further away from background form they are the larger the steps will be.

After current form has been changed during training, there is a chance that background form is changed for each player. Every player has the same individual chance of having his background form change, and there is nothing you can do to influence this chance. However, when chance decrees that a player's background form will change, there are several factors that influence what the new background form will be:

• If a player has participated in a match during the week. This is very important!
• Training intensity - the harder you train, the better form in general
• Your coach - the better skilled he is, the better form in general
• Form Coach - a Form Coach specializes in improving form.
• Assistant coaches - Assistants also help improve form

Specialty

About half of all players have a characteristic called a” specialty", which has impact on matches. There are 5 different main specialties available for players: "Technical", "Quick", "Head", "Powerful" and "Unpredictable". Every main specialty has a good and a bad side, explained in the Special Events chapter. Specialties can also be useful for certain tactic types as explained in the Tactics chapter.

Two rare specialties also exist: Resilient and Support. Players with the Resilient specialty will find their injuries heal slightly faster than other players. In fact, they might overcome a light injury during a match! Support players will try to help teammates that are close-by on the field. If successful, this makes the teammates perform better, but if not successful it can cause a drop in organization for the whole team.

Injuries

Sometimes players get injured. If this is the case, the injury, unless very slight, will put them on the treatment table for a couple of matches. The risk of injuries increases as the team increases the intensity of training or the total number of Assistant Coaches levels on the staff.

Older players take a longer time to heal. A medic can be hired to help players heal faster. The medic also helps reduce the risk of injuries. Players approaching their forties will have a hard time recovering, though. Also, remember that injury times are estimated in weeks - if your star forward has a week-long injury, it will take him up to one week to get fit again.

Yellow and red cards

Players may get booked or sent off during matches. Highly aggressive players (especially those with low honesty and lacking experience) more often than others. Two bookings (yellow cards) during a match will automatically lead to the player getting sent off (red carded). Getting sent off means that the player is suspended from the next competitive game. A player will also be suspended for one match after accumulating 3 bookings from competitive games during a season. Bookings from league, cup, and qualifying games are all counted. If a player has already been booked twice in league matches one season, and receives another booking in a following cup match, he will be suspended for the next competitive match, regardless of whether it's a league match, cup match, or qualifier.

You can check your Players list for how many bookings each player has received. A player who has accumulated 3 bookings or was sent off in his last match will have a red card symbol on the Players list, to show his suspension. The suspended player's booking slate is wiped clean when a competitive match has been played. Also, all player slates are wiped at the end of the season. Transfers do not affect player slates. A player can't get a suspension (or get his slate wiped) from a friendly game.

Starting lineup and substitutes

Choosing team formation

Tactics and team attitude

Man marking order

Individual orders

The basics of the match simulation

The basic attacks

Home field advantage

Psychology and the coach's mentality

Team rating is the rating you should focus on

After a match has been played, you will get a team rating for each part of the team. These ratings tell you how well different parts of your team performed in the match, and it is these ratings that matter for the actual match calculation.

The match rating denominations (the scale goes from non-existent to divine) are also specified in four sub-levels: very low, low, high, and very high. This way it's easier to know precisely how good your rating is. For example a "very high solid" rating is just a little bit worse than "very low excellent", but a lot better than "very low passable".

Star rating

After a match your players receive a star rating for their performance in the match. The more stars, the better the performance.

Please note that the star rating only rates the individual player performance for his particular position and is useful for comparing different players playing in the same position. It's not an ideal way to measure team strength. To know how your whole team performed (and compare with other teams), look at the team ratings.

Please also be aware that team effects (such as the contribution loss for more than one player in a central position (see basic lineup chapter) is not reflected in the star rating.

A normal case

Simply put, the midfield rating of your team will decide how many scoring opportunities your team has during a match. The other parts of the team (Scoring, Winger, Defense, Goalkeeper) will decide the probability of any attacks leading to goals.

The following table may help you understand what to look for when selecting your team. Please note that this is only an example.  Some skill levels may only mean slight differences in performance, and for other levels the differences might be much larger. Additionally, individual orders (play defensively, for example) or the "crowding penalty" for using two or more players in a central position have not been taken into consideration.

Player age and skill level

Younger players are, in general, faster learners than older players, but how much your player will learn from training also depends on the skill level he's at - the lower the skill level the faster the training.   Training a player with a very low skill level is many times faster than if the same player has a medium skill level. Training a player with a very high skill level is much slower than than the medium skill levels.

Training Intensity

When the intensity is higher, the squad's form tends to get better, and players improve faster. You get to pick an intensity level between 0 and 100.   The drawback of a high intensity level is increased risk for injury. You'll have to decide what level you like. We recommend asking other managers on the forums.

Training type

Coaching staff

Stamina training

Stamina is trained every week, as a percentage of the total training the team receives. Its efficiency will drop at higher percentages, so it's better to train a little every week than a lot now and then.  Older players need more stamina training each week to maintain a certain level, which means that there isn't one optimal stamina training share... it depends on your particular squad and ambitions.  Players that played at least 90 minutes for your team during the week receive 100% of the team's stamina training effect. Players playing less than 90 minutes (subs, for example) receive 75% of the effect, plus a share for each minute they've played. Other squad players who have not played for your team during the week, but who are healthy enough to train (including bruised players), receive half the effect. Injured players don't receive any stamina training.

Basic principles

The amount of training a player receives depends on how many minutes he has played for your team in a trainable position during a competitive or a friendly match. Matches played for other teams will only count for the purposes of the form update, and no training will be received. If a player has seen no 'live action' or has not played at least 1 minute, he will not train at all. A player can receive a maximum of 90 minutes training during a week. Playing for more than 90 minutes in a trainable position will not give him more training. Playing fewer minutes, for example 50, will give him less training. In this case, 50 minutes out of 90.

If a player has played in more than one (different) position during the week, the 90 minutes that give him the best training effect will be chosen at the training update. Individual player behaviors during matches do not affect training.

Players in a winger position will only receive half of the training when trained in playmaking. The same goes for wing backs when trained in crossing.

It doesn't matter if the player plays in a friendly game, a cup match, or a league game - they are all just as effective from a training point of view.

However, if you do not have enough players on the squad to fill a lineup for a competitive game, you will give your opponent a walkover victory. In this case, you will lose training only for that specific game - all other training for the week won't be lost.

On the other hand, if you show up for a competitive match but your opponent doesn't, you will win by walkover and your starting XI will receive training as normal, but they will earn no players experience.

Brackets indicate small effects. Double brackets indicate very small effects.

Example

The team trains "Crossing" (winger) this week. Please note that your actual match day may vary. Here we use Sunday to refer to the weekend league match and Wednesday for the midweek friendly/cup match.

• Adam Adams played 90 mins as a winger on Sunday, but missed the Wednesday game. He receives 90 mins full winger training.
• Bert McBert played 90 mins as a winger on Sunday and 90 mins as a forward on Wednesday. He also receives 90 mins full winger training.
• Carl Carlson played 50 mins as a winger Sunday and 90 mins as a wing defender Wednesday. He receives 50 mins full winger training and 40 mins winger training with small effect.
• David Davis played 40 mins as a winger Sunday and 90 mins as a forward Wednesday. He receives 40 mins full winger training and 50 mins training with very small ("osmosis") effect.
• Freddie Fredericks plays 90 minutes as a wingback both Sunday and Wednesday. He still only receives 90 minutes winger training with small effect.
• Gus O'Gumby didn't play on either Sunday or Wednesday. He doesn't improve his skill at all.

Skill decrease

When a player gets closer to the age of 30, he loses a little of his skills each week. How big the decrease is depends on how old the player is and his current skill level. The higher his skill level, the bigger the decrease. Older players also suffer from bigger decreases than younger ones.

Coach abilities

Skill: A skilled coach knows the right methods to train players in order to make them better. The more talented your coach is, the more effective training will be. A coach can never be better than level 5 (Excellent). All new teams get a level 3 (Passable) coach to start with.

Leadership: Apart from running training sessions, your coach is also an inspirational source for your players. In general, your team spirit will be better if your coach is a good leader.

Tactics: Your coach can be offensive, defensive, or neutral, which (only) affects your team's performance during the match. An offensive coach improves your attack at some expense to your defense and a defensive coach improves your defense at some expense to your attack. A defensive coach improves defense slightly more than an offensive coach improves attacks. A neutral coach is neither offensive nor defensive, which means he doesn't help or hinder any sector.

Ability deterioration

After your coach has been in charge for one season, his leadership skill will start to slowly deteriorate. Once your coach reaches disastrous leadership, the deterioration starts affecting his trainer skill instead.

Change coach

If you are not satisfied with your coach you can either recruit a new external one or make one of your players coach. A player needs to have been on your team for at least 16 weeks before being made coach. You can change your coach on the "Staff" page, found under the “My Club" menu.

Remember, all new trainers of a certain skill level are equal. If you purchase a coach with a level 3 (Passable) trainer skill for example, they always become "average" level 3 coaches. However, a level 5 (Excellent), coach is only 1/2 step better than a level 4 (Solid) coach.

When you hire a new coach your old coach will remain in the team as a player, but he can never become a trainer again. And... you can not sell him, either. If you don't want to keep him, you will have to fire him.

Recruit an external coach

When you recruit a new coach you first decide what style of play you want your coach to implement. Then you decide how good you want him to be. Each combination of leadership and skill has a fixed price - the better the trainer the higher the price.

	Leadership
Skill Level	poor (3)	weak (4)	inadequate (5)	passable (6)	solid (7)
	10 000 US$	10 000 US$	10 000 US$	10 000 US$	10 000 US$
	10 000 US$	22 800 US$	41 200 US$	65 100 US$	94 600 US$
	79 600 US$	182 800 US$	329 700 US$	521 000 US$	757 100 US$
	268 700 US$	617 100 US$	1 112 900 US$	1 758 500 US$	2 555 500 US$
	4 000 000 US$	4 388 400 US$	7 914 600 US$	12 505 200 US$	18 172 500 US$

Make a player coach

When you turn a player into coach he will keep his current leadership. His experience determines how skilled he can become, and also how much his coaching course to reach a certain skill level costs. So, if you have a very experienced player with high leadership, this can be a real bargain. The player must, however, have been in your squad for at least a season (16 weeks) before you can make him a coach.

Revenues and expenses

On the finances page you can see your budget for this week and last week's financial status. This is what the entries mean:

Revenue

Match takings: Your income from home league matches and all mid-week matches. See Chapter 10 'The Stadium' for more information on crowd income.

Sponsors: Each week you get a sum of money from your sponsors. Check the 'Fans and sponsors' chapter for more info.

Player sales: Whenever you sell a player, the income ends up here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.

Commission: If you received any money for being the previous or mother club it will show here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.

Other: Any other income is accumulated here, such as membership fees from fans and prize money.

Expenses

Wages: Each week you pay your players' salaries. For each player you pay 250 US$ plus a certain amount based on his skills and age. You pay 20% extra for foreign players.

Stadium maintenance: The weekly cost for running and servicing your stadium. See Chapter 10 'The Stadium' for more info.

Stadium building: Construction or demolition costs if you rebuild your stadium.

Staff: Each staff member costs you between 1 020 US$ and 33 840 US$ per week, depending on the level of the staff member (1 to 5) and the contract's length (1 to 16 weeks).

Youth scouting: The weekly costs for your youth academy, or your weekly investment in your scouting network.

New signings: Your costs for buying new players on the transfer market end up here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.

Other: The remaining costs are accumulated here, such as firing staff and promoting players to your senior team.

Interest: If you're in debt you will have to pay some interest.

Cash funds and Board reserves

The Board limits the money available in cash to the manager for expenses such as salaries, player transfer fees, or stadium projects. Any assets beyond this working capital will be reserved by the Board to ensure the future stability of the Club. If needed, the Board will release money from the reserves into the working capital, but only at a measured rate.

The Financial Director you can hire for your staff can increase both the working capital and the rate of return from the cash reserves.

Debts and bankruptcy

There's nothing to keep you from spending money even if your balance is zero. You can run a small debt and still spend money, for example buying players or hiring a coach. However, once you hit 200 000 US$ in debt, your spending options become limited. You'll have a line of credit of up to 500 000 US$ at the bank. Be aware, though, whenever you go into the red, you'll pay some heavy duty interest on the borrowed money. If you run up debts amounting to 500 000 US$, you'll be given a bankruptcy warning. If you do not return your balance to within the 500 000 US$ debt limit within two weeks of your bankruptcy warning, you will be forced to leave the Hattrick series system!Note that if a team has players for sale whose current bids are enough to reach the "safe zone," or if the team has plenty of cash in the board reserves, the team will not go bankrupt - but will still pay interest from its current account.

Fan mood

The members of your fan club decide a lot when it comes to your team's finances. Membership fees (30 US$ / member) are paid once per season, but more importantly, their mood helps determine attendance, which affects gate receipts at your stadium.

The easiest way to keep their mood up and attract new fans, is to match (or even exceed) their expectations. Their current mood can be seen on the Fans page.

Season expectations

At the start of every season, fans will tell you what they expect of the team. These expectations depend mostly on what happened last season, what fans expected then, and what the outcome was.

As your team advances (or drops) through the league system, your fans will slowly get used to the new situation. If you just got promoted, fans will not expect much. But if you are staying put in the same division year after year, fans will tend to hope for just a little more.

Match expectations

The season expectations influence the expectations your fans have for each match. On the Fans page you can see what they expect from each match. Generally, fans expect more from you when you play at home.

If the match result is what they expected, a win will make them like you and a loss will not disappoint them too much (if they were predicting defeat). If the result is better than their expectations, their mood will be even better. But, if the result is worse than their expectations, it will affect their mood negatively. For the first league rounds of the season, your fans' reaction to the results will be a bit more moderate.

At the start of the season, match expectations are based on the seasonal expectations of both teams' fans. As the season progresses, the actual league standings (position and points) of both teams becomes more important. In cup matches, fans base their match expectations only on the seasonal expectations (including division level) of both teams.

Team attitude and your cash funds influence fans

Telling your players to "Play it cool" or play the "Match of the Season" also influences the fan reaction to the match result. If the result is as expected (or better), playing it cool will reduce the positive effect and match of the season will increase the positive effect.

If the result is worse than expected, playing it cool will increase the negative effect and match of the season will reduce the negative effect.

If you have a lot of money saved up, your fans are a bit harder to please as they feel you could be spending to reach success. Rich teams' fans react more harshly to losses and less positively to wins than fans of poorer clubs. The more money your team has, the higher the effect.

Sponsors

Sponsors provide an important source of income for your club as well. Like with fans, this means that more successful teams get paid more. But sponsors also compete with each other and have different strategies for how they want to reward your team, and this is something a clever manager can use to their advantage.

In Week 16, the week before the new season starts, the manager is presented with a number of sponsor offers for the upcoming season.

All teams in a series have the same chance to receive a certain offer, but amounts may vary, as sponsors base their offers on fan club levels, as well as division. This means that all teams will be presented with a unique mix of offers, requiring the manager to think carefully about what will work best for his or her team.

All contracts come with a fixed income every week. In addition to this, they also have one or more bonus payouts. Some of these will be very easy to complete in exchange for a set reward, while others are riskier, but also come with a larger potential bonus. Contracts expire at the end of each season and you’ll then get new contracts to choose from.

If you don’t select a contract, the Board will do it for you. They’ll always select the contract with the least amount of risk, and thus the least potential reward.

Income and costs

Your stadium can have four different types of seats, each having their own ticket prices and weekly upkeep costs (which you always have to pay).

In the match reports from home games, you can see how many tickets were sold of each type. The income from matches is distributed differently between clubs depending on what type of match it is:

League matches: The home team takes all the income.

Cup matches: The home team takes 67% of the income and away team gets 33%, except for the last six rounds, which are played at neutral venues and where income is split evenly.

Friendlies and qualifiers: Income is split evenly.

Your crowd appearance

The attendance at your stadium largely depends on your fans. Your fans' mood and the size of your fan club are the most important crowd factors. Your current position in your series, and the difference between your position and your opponent's position are also important (for series matches).

To some extent the size and mood of your opponents' fan club matters, as some of them might like to come too. It's also worth knowing that people get more interested in going to matches as the season progresses. You will, in general, get bigger crowds at the end of the season than at the beginning.

Naturally, the weather also matters. Fewer fans will visit your stadium in bad weather, but those who come will be more interested in buying more expensive tickets to sit under a roof. It is therefore possible that your total income could be about the same in any weather, as long as there are enough appropriate seats.

Improving the stadium

It's a good idea to offer a mix of different types of seats to your fans. Most people want to buy tickets for the bleachers, therefore these should be the largest in number among your seat types. Some people only attend matches if they can have comfortable seats (and some will also demand a roof over their heads), so you should have quite a lot of those too. There is also a wealthy group of attendees who only want to sit in fancy VIP lounges. There aren't many of them, but you don't want to forget about them either. Seats under a roof and in VIP lounges aren't affected as much by bad weather as the other types.

Formation experience

Your team can play any formation you wish, but your players might get confused and play below their ordinary capacity if you use a formation they aren't experienced with. To increase the formation experience and avoid confusion your team simply needs some practice. You gain formation experience every time you use a given formation (friendlies and competitive matches count just as much, but not tournaments, ladders, Duels, or the Hattrick Masters). The amount of experience you get for each formation is minute based (maximum 90 min per match), just as training. However, if you win by a walkover and fielded at least 9 players in your starting lineup, you also get formation experience as if a 90-minute match had been played. If you fail to submit a valid lineup of at least 9 players (which forces other club functionaries to name a lineup for you), your players will not get any formation experience.

Gaining formation experience becomes harder at high levels of formation experience. If you don't play with a certain formation, the experience will decrease over time. There is also a risk of losing a little formation experience when you sell a player.

Confusion

If your players aren't experienced enough with a formation, they risk becoming confused at any time during the match, which negatively affects their performance. A formation experience level of excellent or better is enough to keep this from happening. For lower levels, the risk of becoming confused rises the lower your formation experience level is. If your players' accumulated individual experience (see below) is high, the risk decreases, though.

In case of confusion your formation experience also decides how confused your players will be; the lower your formation experience level is, the more confused your players will become. If your players become confused, a text showing the current level of your team organization will be displayed in the match report. A confusion event saying that your team organization fell to "wretched" means that it was very bad, while a drop to "solid" only had a very limited effect. If your players are confused at half-time (or before extra-time) your coach can improve the situation somewhat by giving an extra team talk.

Players' individual experience

Experience positively affects a player's actions on the field. Players gain experience by playing matches. National Cup matches give about twice as much experience as league matches. Challenger and Consolation Cup matches gives your players half the league match experience. An international friendly match gives about a fifth of the experience that a league match gives and a friendly against a team from your own country gives about half as much as an international friendly. National team matches give the most experience, followed by Hattrick Masters matches.

The amount of experience a certain player receives is minute based, just like training. A player cannot gain more than 90 minutes of experience from one match.

Team captain and total experience

You can appoint a team captain for each match. Experience and leadership are important abilities for the team captain, as the captain's level in those attributes gives a bonus when calculating your team's total experience - which can prevent your team both from suffering confusion and from getting nervous in important and dramatic matches. In such situations, only the team with the lowest amount of experience at that particular moment can get nervous, reflecting their inexperience. The difference between the two teams' experience levels decides how nervous the players will get. Teams will never suffer from this in league matches or friendlies.

The team captain has to be in your starting lineup. If you haven't appointed a team captain, the players will choose a captain they think will do a good job.

Penalty takers

Cup and qualifier matches can end in a penalty kick shoot-out if there is still a draw after extra time. You choose your penalty takers through a sub-page to the order form. When choosing the order please remember that nothing is more nerve-wracking than a penalty kick shoot-out, and at every penalty (not during regular match time, though) a test of the shooter's experience is made. Apart from experience, the shooter's scoring and set pieces skills (as well as technical speciality) are taken into consideration. For keepers the keeper skill and the quick specialty are all that matters.

Set Pieces

Some of your basic attacks will result in a set pieces opportunity. Just as in real soccer, you can score a lot of goals by being good at set pieces. There are two types of set pieces, direct and indirect.

Direct set pieces

Indirect set pieces

About 1/3 of the set pieces you get will be indirect. Indirect set pieces are indirect free kicks, and the outcome depends on team effort. To attack, you use (in order of importance) your outfield players' average scoring skill, their average set pieces skill, and your set pieces taker's set pieces skill. To defend, you use (in order of importance) your outfielders' average defending, their average set pieces, your goalkeeper's goalkeeping, and his set pieces.

Special Events

Apart from basic attacks, "Special events" may occur. Special events are match events that occur depending on players' attributes, their specialties (in particular), which makes it a strategy IN itself to compose a squad that has a good balance of player specialties.

There are two types of special events: team events and individual events. The chance to experience a team special event is decided by your ball possession (if you have 55% ball possession you also have a 55% chance to get a team special event).

The individual special events is driven by what specialties the players on the field have. Having many players with specialties can be an advantage, but it is not enough. You must also have players with the right attribute in the right position for a particular event for it to be triggered. It is important to find the right balance of specialties on your team.

For each special event happening in a match, the chance for another special event decreases.

Weather conditions

Certain specialties are better suited to certain weather conditions. Every player's performance is affected by the specific weather conditions from the very start of the game.

Technical players gain 5% on all their skills in the sun, but lose the same percentage in the rain.

Powerful players gain 5% in the rain, and lose 5% in the sun.

Quick players lose 5% in the rain and in the sun.

When a weather event happens you will get information about it in the match report, and the player's star rating will also reflect their performance accordingly.

Goal events

Specialties (and other player attributes) can gain you additional attacks. In addition to what is listed below, the player who pulls the chance away (often, but not always, the same player who creates the chance) also needs some scoring skill in order to score from these attacks.

Unpredictable players can use their passing skill to create unexpected long passes if they are keepers, wing-backs or central defenders. They can use their scoring skill to intercept the ball if they are inner midfielders, forwards or wingers. If they are field players, their unpredictability itself may also create unlikely scoring opportunities. The lower the defense skill of an unpredictable defender or inner midfielder, the higher is the probability they can also make a reckless error that will give the opponent a chance to score. An unpredictable winger or forward with low passing skill is also more likely to cause chaos in your defense, possibly resulting in an own goal.

Quick wingers, inner midfielders and forwards can create a chance by using a burst of speed. This can be countered by the opposing team using a defensive player (central defender or wing back) who is also quick. You will also have a boost on your counter attacks tactic level for every quick winger, inner midfielder, and forward on your team. The opponent can still diminish this effect with quick inner midfielders, wingbacks, defenders, or keeper (just the extra boost can be nullified, not the initial tactic level).

Technical wingers, inner midfielders and forwards can create chances if an opposing keeper, defender or inner midfielder is a head specialist (the head specialist doesn’t have to be in the exact opposite slot). Moreover, every technical defender and wing back will give you a small chance to create a non-tactical counter attack from a missed normal chance of your opponent. The higher the passing of the defender, the bigger the chance.

Wingers with sufficient winger skill can create chances that will have to be finished off by another winger, a midfielder, or a forward. If that other player has sufficient scoring skill, he is more likely to score; if he is a head specialist, it will be even easier for him to score.

Corner: To score from a corner kick, you can improve your chances by having a high set pieces skill on the player that takes the corner and by having a high offensive indirect set pieces rating against the opponent's defensive indirect set pieces rating. There are two types of corner kicks. In one, the higher the number of outfield head specialists in your team (your set pieces taker does not count), and the lower the number of head specialists among your opponent's, the better your chances to score. Having no head specialists at all will make you very weak at defending against corners and very weak at scoring from your own corners. In the other, the chance to score will depend on the scoring skill of the player that receives the ball. Note that corners might lead to a yellow card for the offensive team, but if your player is already carded, he will be extra careful, so the risk of a second yellow is lower than it would otherwise have been.

Experience: Experienced forwards can score using their experience. Inexperienced central defenders and wingbacks can give their opponents an extra chance.

Tiredness: Tired central defenders can make mistakes. Unless the opposing attacker is also too tired, this may create a chance for the opponent.

Other additional match events

There are also some additional events you can get in a match. The chance to get these events is not dependent on midfield strength, so the chance doesn't increase if you're dominating the midfield.

Counter-attacks: Even if you don't use the counter-attack tactic there is a small chance that your team gets to counter. These "tactic-independent" counter-attacks do not require your team to have an inferior midfield (which otherwise is necessary to counter). See the chapter about tactics for more info on counter-attacks.

Long shots: Even if you don't use the long shot tactic there is a slim chance that your team gets a long shot opportunity. Read the tactics chapter for more info about long shots.

Powerful inner midfielders, if playing defensive (also called sitting midfielders) can concentrate on breaking up attacks and winning the ball. If he succeeds in pressing, the opponent's attack breaks down. To do that, he will rely on his defending skill and stamina.

Powerful forwards, if playing normal (also called power forwards) can put their bodies in the right place, forcing a second chance to shoot and score after a normal chance for your team has been missed. They will need sufficient playmaking and scoring skills to do that. Note that their physical play can result in yellow cards; however, if your player has already been carded, he will tread more carefully in these situations.

You will suffer an overcrowding penalty if you field two or three players having the same combination of specialties and positions of the following types: technical defensive forwards, powerful normal forwards and powerful defensive inner midfielders. If you field two players of the same type, you will suffer a penalty on their contribution (4% each). If you field three of them, the penalty will be bigger (7.5% each).

Tactical skill

How well you master a tactic depends on the tactical skill for that particular tactic. This skill is calculated from different players' skills together with an experience bonus for each involved player.

Pressing

Pressing means that your players put pressure on your opponent and focus more on breaking your opponent's attacks than creating their own. Pressing could be a good option when you feel inferior and want to keep the score down.

Advantage: You can reduce the number of potential chances (for both teams) in a match.

Disadvantage: It will drain the stamina of your players faster than normal.

Relevant Skills: The total defending skill and the total stamina of all your players determine your Pressing tactical skill. If a player has the "Powerful" speciality, his defense skill counts as double. The more tired your players get, the less able they are to put pressure on their opponents.

Counter-attacks

Counter-attacks (CA) mean you deliberately let your opponent control the ball, and as soon as they fail with an attack you try to make a fast counter-attack. Playing counter-attacks could be a good option if you have a very good defense and attack (but a bad midfield), and especially in combination with your opponent having an ineffective attack.

Advantage: You can gain additional attacks (you get the chance to counter-attack when your defense manages to stop an opponent's attack).

Disadvantage: You lose 7% of your midfield capacity.

Relevant Skills: The total sum of your defenders' passing and defending skills determines your CA tactical skill. Passing is twice as important as defending.

Attack in the middle

Attacking in the middle (AIM) means your team focuses on attacking down the center of the pitch at the expense of attacks on the wings. In practical terms, this means your team may successfully trade what would have been a wing attack for an attack in the middle. When this happens, however, the chance for it to happen again will decrease.

Advantage: Around 15-30% of your wing attacks will be converted to attacks in the middle.

Disadvantage: Your wing defense (on both sides) gets somewhat worse.

Relevant Skills: The total passing skill of all your outfield players determines your AIM tactical skill.

Attack on wings

Attack on wings (AOW) works in the same way as “Attack in the middle”, only in reverse, meaning there is a chance that middle attacks are traded for attacks on the wings. As there normally are less attacks in the middle than on the wings, you convert percentage-wise slightly more of them. Also, for every time an attack is moved to the wings, the chance for it to happen again will decrease.

Advantage: Around 20-40% of your central attacks will be converted to wing attacks.

Disadvantage: Your central defense gets somewhat worse.

Relevant Skills: The total passing skill of all your outfield players determines your AOW tactical skill.

Play creatively

Play creatively (PC) means players try to make more use of their specialties, and other attributes.

Advantage: You increase the maximum possible number of special events occurring during the match for both teams, but your own team will get slightly higher chances to get one of them (both positive and negative).

Disadvantage: Your team defense gets somewhat worse.

Long Shots

When playing long shots (LS), your players are instructed to go for a long shot rather than try playing the whole attacking sequence through. In other words, you trade central and wing attacks for long shots. A long shot then pits the shooter against the goalkeeper. This can be useful if you have a hard time scoring on your central/wing attacks, but have decent shooters.

Advantage: The long shots tactic converts up to around 30% of side and middle attacks to long shots.

Disadvantage: Your wing and central attacks, as well as your midfield, get a little bit worse.

Relevant skills: Your outfielders' scoring and set pieces skills determine the LS tactical skill. Scoring is three times more important than set pieces.

When an attack has been converted to a long shot, a defending team using the pressing tactic has a chance to steer off the shooting opportunity. If the shot is not steered off, an outfielder (inner midfielders and wingers are twice as likely) takes the shot. The quality of the shot depends on the appointed shooter's scoring and set pieces skills, and the goalkeeper can attempt to save the shot using his goalkeeping and set pieces skills. For both shooter and keeper: A bit of both skills is needed, and it's better to have some of both skills than to only have a lot of one.

All long shots are reported in the match report, including any steered off opportunities.

Preconditioned substitutions

Adding a preconditioned substitution

Adding a behavior change

You can add five player orders

Orders are carried out when the conditions are met

Player orders will be carried out in the match as soon as all the conditions set ahead of time are met. If the condition(s) isn't (aren't) met, the order will not be carried out. If you order a substitution in the 65th minute at any standing, the substitution will be carried out in the 65th minute. If you order a substitution in the 70th minute on the condition that you're in the lead, the substitution will be carried out the first time the condition is met after the 70th minute. So if you get into the lead in the 80th minute, your substitution will be carried out first then.

If you set up two orders for the 70th minute, for example, one if you're in the lead and the other if you're in the lead by more than one, and you have a 3-0 lead when that time comes, both orders will be issued. Please note: If you have set up two orders with the same conditions (match minute and result, for example) they will NOT be executed at the exact same moment but in the order they were created.

You can't react to injuries

Team spirit

The atmosphere at your club has a great influence over the performance of your team. Team spirit affects your midfield ratings, and the higher team spirit you have, the better your midfield will perform. This, in turn, determines the amount of ball possession you will have. Team spirit itself can be affected by a lot of things, but in particular your coach's leadership, the team attitude you set for each match, transfers, and your psychologist, if you have one.

Confidence

Team attitude

Before each competitive match you tell your squad how important the match is. Your team attitude setting affects how much ball possession you will get. You have three options:

Match of the Season: Your players will do anything to win this one. However, directly after the match the team spirit will fall, which means your players will not perform at their best in the following matches.

Normal: The players perform as usual.

Play it cool: Your players are instructed to take it easy, as there are other more important matches to focus on later. Directly after the match, team spirit will increase and your players will perform better in their next matches.

Player personality

Psychological match events

The way a match unfolds can impact the behavior of the players beyond the instructions laid out by the coach. Such psychological events can have a big impact on a specific match, but they do not, by themselves, affect the team spirit or confidence of future matches A team that gains a lead of two goals in a match will automatically start to lose their attacking momentum and will focus more on defense. This effect will further increase as the lead is extended; each goal increase in the goal difference decreases attack by 9% and increases defense by 7.5%. Each goal reduction in the goal difference reverses the previous effect. There is an upper limit of a goal difference of 8, after which the team’s ratings will stop changing.

In some situations teams are able to withstand this psychological effect. If the team has been given "Match of the Season" instructions, they won’t back down even when in a large lead. The same goes if the team plays a final in one of the national Cups or the Hattrick Masters, and in the last series round of the season. In national teams competitions, the team won't back down from the semifinals included in the World Cup, while in the Continental Cups and Nations Cup there will be no pullback from the quarterfinals on.

Moreover, a team performing unusually badly in the first half might get a tongue lashing from the coach during the break, and be able to pull themselves back together.

Underestimation

If you're facing a team in a worse position than you and your confidence is strong or better, your players may underestimate your opponent and play below their normal capacity. The risk to underestimate your opponent is dependent on the points and position difference between the teams, your confidence level, and your team attitude for the match. The risk is higher at higher confidence levels and when there's a bigger gap in the standings. The only way to completely avoid underestimation is to play 'match of the season'.

If you do end up underestimating your opponent factors such as point difference, confidence level, team attitude, and stadium in which your match is played determine how much underestimation there is. Depending upon the score, you might recover at half time. You'll have a full recovery if behind, 2/3 if you're tied, and 1/3 if you lead by a single goal.

Note that underestimation can only happen in series matches, but not in the first three rounds.

Selling a player

To sell a player, you place him on the transfer list, which you do from the page of that particular player. You choose what price you want to ask for him and he is placed on the transfer list. To get an idea of the player's value, you can use the Transfer Compare feature, and we always suggest listing at a realistic price. A player, however, needs to have played at least one game for your team to be transfer listed, and you can't transfer list a player more times than he has played games for your team. This restriction does not apply to players promoted from your youth team, or to players that were on your team when you first became manager. The player will be on the transfer list for three days before going to the club that has offered the most, provided somebody has bid for him. A sold player disappears off to his new club after the deadline expires, unless one of the clubs involved in the transfer is playing a match at the time, in which case he will arrive as soon as the match finishes. If a buyer is not found, he will stay at your club. If you put a player up for sale by mistake, you may cancel the transfer. Canceling a transfer is possible for 10 minutes after listing the player, as long as there have been no bids. Your listing fee will not be refunded. Outside this window, you always have the option to buy the player back yourself!

Buying a player

To buy a player you visit the player market, the transfer list, under the Club menu, via the World menu, or via the transfer search icon in the top right corner. You search for what kind of player you want. To make an offer you enter the page of the player by clicking on his name. You must raise the bid by 1 000 US$ or 2%, whichever is greater. If there is no current bid on the player you can bid the asking price, as long as this is equal to or greater than 1 000 US$. Note that the sum of your bids plus the wages of the players on whom you are bidding (you always pay a player's first salary immediately after the purchase) cannot put you more than 200 000 US$ into debt.

You may bid on a player right up until the deadline. If someone places an offer less than 3 minutes before the deadline, the deadline will be extended for another 3 minutes from the point in time that the offer was made.

Autobidding

Autobidding works in the same way as any normal bid would. If you place a max bid the system will automatically bid for you when needed, always raising the bid with the lowest possible amount (2% or 1 000 US$, whichever is lower).

You can change (both increase and decrease) your max bid at any time, but you can't remove your current bid. Your max bid is only visible to you; other managers just see the current bid.

You can have one active max bid at a time. If your max bid has reached its max, it does not count as an autobid anymore and you can set another max bid if you want.

For some special cases (like when two teams make the same autobid or when two autobidders bid against each other) we have built in some smart logic, here are some examples to help explain this logic.

The agent, the mother club and transfer fees

Placing a player on the transfer list costs 1 000 US$. After the completed deal the player's agent, mother club, and previous club will all take their cut of the sale price. On the player page you can always see how much you will keep if you sell a player. Here are the basics:

How much the agent takes depends on how long the player has been in your team.

The mother club always takes 2% of the selling price. When you're the mother club, you always receive 2% each time that player is sold. Please bear in mind you neither pay nor receive any mother club money when selling a homegrown player for the first time.

The previous club fund always takes 3% of the selling price. When you're the previous club the money you receive depends on how many matches the player played for your team.

See these tables for more info.

Transfer proceeds to Board reserves

For some player sales, the Board may decide to transfer a part of the proceeds to Board reserves for later use by the club.

This happens only for specific players, and for most managers it will be a very rare occurrence.

The Board will tell you during the transfer listing process if this is about to happen and, if so, the percentage of the proceeds that will go to Reserves.

The Board may do this when they think a player is being sold for speculative reasons, or as a way to store value. They will reason that the team does not need to replace the player for competitive reasons. (Historically, such players have been called "Gold Bars" by the community, for their ability to hold value over time).

Currently, Boards will only consider retaining money for goalkeepers with at least solid goalkeeping skill, or potential future coaches with at least solid leadership plus inadequate experience or higher.

The percentage of the sale that the Board sends to Reserves depends on how many matches the player has recently played for your team.

The general rule is that for regular starters, all money stays as cash - no money goes to Reserves. Being a regular means playing at least 60 minutes once a week.

Absence due to injury is ignored, but if healthy players are sidelined, more money will be earmarked for Board Reserves.

Example: A player that fits the "Gold Bar" criteria has been starting in league matches all season. When the manager considers selling the player, the Board stands back - all proceeds (after agent fees) would be available to the coach as cash. Now say the transfer listing does not happen and the player is instead put on the bench. After two weeks, 12% of transfer proceeds will be earmarked for Board Reserves. After four weeks on the bench, the earmarked amount rises to 24%. Then the manager decides to start the player again. After six weeks playing league or Cup matches, the player can be sold with no money ending up in Board Reserves.

As a rule of thumb it takes three weeks of playing in a league or Cup match to recover two weeks of inactivity. If only playing friendlies, the recovery takes twice the time. If a player was raised in your team, no money will go to Board Reserves, whatever the skills and starting status of the player may be. This also goes for players that joined the club in the last two weeks and have not had the time to become starters.

Transfers may affect team spirit

Server shutdowns

Fair Play in the Transfer Market

Good players and money are key aspects of Hattrick, which make it very important that no team benefits from abnormal activities in the transfer market. This means that buying players at inflated prices is prohibited, and so is any activity that is designed to give a team a financial benefit of any kind. Only the player attributes such as skills, age, uniqueness, NT/U21 potential, and other qualities which have an influence on the game, play a role in determining a player's market value.

The division tree

The number of divisions can differ from one country to another, but the basic structure is always the same. For instance, the Italian series system looks like this:

1 Division I (Serie A)
4 Division II (II.1, II.2, II.3, II.4)
16 Division III (III.1, III.2, etc to III.16)
64 Division IV (IV.1, IV.2, etc to IV.64)
256 Division V (V.1, V.2, etc to V.256)
1024 Division VI (VI.1, VI.2, etc. to VI.1024)
1024 Division VII (VII.1, VII.2, etc. to VII.1024)
2048 Division VIII (VIII.1, VIII.2, etc. to VIII.2048)
2048 Division IX (IX.1, IX.2, etc. to IX.2048)
4096 Division X (X.1, X.2, etc. to X.4096)
4096 Division XI (XI.1, XI.2, etc. to XI.4096)

Please note that beginning with league level VI, the number of series doubles at every second level.

Promotion, relegation, and qualifiers

If you win your series you will either advance directly to a higher division, or play a qualifier to promote. In divisions II-VI the series winners with the most points promote directly, the other winners have to qualify. In lower divisions all winners promote directly. In odd-numbered divisions (VII, IX, etc) the runners up also promote directly.

Series winners who have to qualify will face a team who finished 5th or 6th in the division above. Out of the series winners that must play a qualification match, the ones with the best records meet the worst 6th place teams, and the ones with the weakest records are pitched against the best 5th place teams. The team from the higher division plays at home. If the series winner wins, the two teams swap places in the league system. If the higher division team wins, they stay in their respective series.

If you end up in 7th or 8th place, you will be automatically relegated to the division below (except for the lowest division). The relegated team with the best record (the best team out of those finishing in place 7) will swap series with the promoted team that has the strongest record. The relegated team with the worst record swaps places with the weakest team that has gained promotion.

In divisions VII and IX, teams who finished 3rd and 4th place will play promotion qualifiers and in divisions VIII and X, teams who finished 2nd will play a promotion qualifier.

Switch series in switching window

If your team competes in one of the three bottom divisions in your league, it may be possible to switch from one series to another in the same division. For this to work, there needs to be a free slot in the series you want to join; something that will be shown in the series table during the season break switching window. Also, if you have an additional team under your management, as part of your Supporter membership, your teams can never move to play in the same series.

Bot relegation

At the end of each season all bot teams in division VI and lower will be relegated to the lowest possible division. The only exception to this is at the very top of division VI, where any bot team that wins the series will either promote or play a qualifier as normal. Bot teams in division V or above are treated in the same way as human owned teams in terms of promotion and relegation.

As these bot teams are demoted, additional teams will be given space in the higher division. These teams will be labeled "Lucky Losers", and will either be teams that lost qualification matches, or in some cases, teams that were demoted directly. You can opt out from this kind of promotion in the team settings.

If there are enough bots in a country to fill the entire bottom division, the system automatically closes the bottom division, and hence makes preparations for it.

League position and ranking

Prize money

If you finish in the top half of the table you will get some prize money. How much you get depends on your place and in which division you play:

Promotion bonus

If you are directly promoted to a higher division you get a promotion bonus on top of the prize money. Moreover, promotion will also boost your fan club: you'll receive a 10% increase in fans. Similarly, if you demote you will lose 10% of your fans. If you promote "for free," outside the regular promotion slot, you only get the fan club boost. Examples of this include promotion due to bot removal and the temporary extra promotion slots available in the Hattrick International league.

Cup fixtures

Cup matches are always played in the middle of the week. The first round of the National and Divisional Cups always takes place a few days before your first league match of the season. The Challenger Cups consists of teams that have been eliminated from either the National or Divisional Cup, and for this reason the first Challenger Cup starts one week after the National Cup and Divisional Cup. There are separate Challenger Cups that correspond with the National Cup and with each Divisional Cup. Your first cup opponent and the cup you will play in are announced one week in advance. In coming rounds, your next opponent and current cup will be announced shortly after all matches for the current cup round have ended.

Cup Venues

The main rule is that the strongest team still in the cup will play away against the weakest team still in the cup. To decide this, we use a cup ranking, explained further down.

In the cup's last six rounds, rankings no longer influence home or away advantage, as all matches are played at neutral venues.

Cup Draw

How is your opponent in the cup decided?

In the first round of the cup, the highest-ranked team will always play away against the lowest-ranked team in the cup.

Before the first round kicks off, the draw for the second round is made. For this draw, it is assumed that all high-ranked teams progressed from the first round.

If a lower-ranked team wins in the first round, it will inherit the place of its opponent in the second round. This could give it an easier opponent than it would otherwise have gotten in that round.
However, this advantage does not last. Before the second round starts, the draw for the third round is made. Again, all remaining top-ranked teams are matched against the remaining low-ranked teams.

The advantage of this system is that for any cup round, all remaining teams will know what happens if they progress to the next round. There is always another match, the winner of which will play the winner of your match in the next round.

Here is an example of how the Hattrick Cup draw works:

1. In the first round, we have the following 16 teams and matchups:

First Round

TeamRank16-TeamRank1
TeamRank15-TeamRank2
TeamRank14-TeamRank3
TeamRank13-TeamRank4
TeamRank12-TeamRank5
TeamRank11-TeamRank6
TeamRank10-TeamRank7
TeamRank9-TeamRank8

The expected Round 2 matchups, as made known before Round 1 starts, are these:

TeamRank8-TeamRank1
TeamRank7-TeamRank2
TeamRank6-TeamRank3
TeamRank5-TeamRank4

However, two Round 1 matches ended in surprise wins for the underdogs - Teams 16 and 14 outperformed. Because of this, the actual matchups in Round 2 will be:

TeamRank8-TeamRank16
TeamRank7-TeamRank2
TeamRank6-TeamRank14
TeamRank5-TeamRank4.

Now, when the draw for Round 3 is done, the system again assumes that the top-ranked teams will win, hence creating this draw:

Team Rank8-TeamRank2
TeamRank6-TeamRank4

If Team 16 wins again, it will acquire the seat of Team 8.
If Team 14 wins again, it will get the seat of Team 6.

Cup Ranking

The cup ranking is used when creating the cup draw. It is a static ranking that does not change once the cup has started. The first factor for the ranking is what division the team plays in during the current season. Teams are then ranked within these divisional groups as follows:

1. Active relegated teams
2. Active teams that neither relegated nor promoted
3. Teams that promoted by their own strength
4. Teams that promoted for "free" (replacing a relegated bot)
5.Bots, in case of vacant spots

Teams within each group above are sorted according to the ranking at the end of the last season. The ranking stays the same for the duration of the cup.

Joining a Secondary Cup Later

For Challenger and Consolation cups, the time of entry is also factored into the seed. Teams who entered early are guaranteed to be seeded higher than those who joined later. The cup ranking of each team still matters, but only to decide in which order teams that entered on the same date will be seeded.

One example would be that your team manages to stay in the National Cup until round 5 or 6 before being eliminated. As your cup journey continues in a lower-tier Challenger Cup, you will always be seeded lower than teams that joined before you. The highest-ranked team of those who entered in the first round will play against the lowest-ranked team of those who entered most recently.

The Different Cups and Their Formats

The most important cup in every league is the National Cup. This is open to every team in Division 6 and above that has a human manager. Only the very best teams will have a chance to win the National Cup, but any team that progresses far in this competition will be well rewarded.

However, if your team is eliminated early from the National Cup you will get a second chance. If you are eliminated in any of the first six rounds of the National Cup, you will instead gain a place in one of the three national Challenger Cups. Participating in the Challenger Cups will still be more attractive for your club than just playing friendlies, but rewards are still a lot lower than the National Cup. If you can, staying in the National Cup should always pay off.

The three Challenger Cups are, originally, the Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire Cups, though they may have different names in some leagues. The Emerald Cup takes on any team that is eliminated from the National Cup in round 1 or 6. Teams eliminated in rounds 2 and 5 are moved to the Ruby Cup. And teams eliminated in rounds 3 and 4 are moved to the Sapphire Cup. The three cups run parallel to each other and to the National Cup, and one winner will be crowned in each one of them.

Teams that are eliminated in round one of the Emerald and Ruby Challenger Cups will gain a place in the Consolation Cup. This Cup does not give any prize money or other perks, but the winner still gets a trophy.

In leagues with more than six divisions Divisional Cups are organized for Division 7 and below. The Divisional Cups follow a similar pattern to the National Cup. They have one main cup, the three Challenger Cups - Emerald, Ruby, and Sapphire - and one Consolation Cup. The only difference is that the overall prize money is lower.

The size of the Cups is determined by the number of teams that are qualified for the cup and have human managers. The smallest possible Cup size that still makes room for all qualified human teams will be chosen. Once all human teams are in, the Cup will be filled up with bot teams to complete the starting field.

1. The amount of qualified teams managed by humans is counted
2. The smallest cup size that fits all the teams managed by humans is chosen
3. The Cup is then filled out by the human teams first
4. Regular bots from the league system are used next
5. If this is not enough, new bot teams are created for the purpose of the Cup only

• Losing teams in round one and six of the National Cup will move on to the the Emerald Challenger Cup.
• Losing teams in round two and five of the National Cup will move on to the Ruby Challenger Cup.
• Losing teams in round three and four of the National Cup will move on to the Sapphire Challenger Cup.
• Losing teams from the first rounds of both the Emerald and Ruby Challenger Cups will move on to the Consolation Cup.

Team effects

One important aspect of the Cups is the tactical options that they present. Staying in the Cup for a long time gives you more competitive games, which also means more opportunities to increase confidence and team spirit in preparation for the league. Cup games also give your players more experience, which along with higher ticket sales makes a long cup run even more valuable. However, not all Cups will impact your team in the same way.

Cards and injuries are in full effect in all the cups. Cards picked up in cup games count the same as cards in league games for suspensions and yellow card accumulation.

Team spirit, confidence, fan mood: Only National Cup and Divisional Cup games will have an effect on these values. Matches played in any other cup behave like a friendly when it comes to the impact on future team spirit, confidence, and fan mood.

Experience: The National Cup and Divisional Cup give players twice as much experience as a league game. Challenger and Consolation Cup matches give your players half the experience they would get from a league game.

Cup income

Ticket sales are an important benefit from a successful Cup run. The longer you progress in any Cup, the more spectators will come and thus more revenue will be generated. The National Cup and the Divisional Cups are considerably more attractive to the fans than their corresponding Challenger and Consolation Cups. While a National or Divisional Cup game (at least in later rounds) can attract similar attendance to a league match, the other cups are more comparable to friendlies when it comes to attendance. The National Challenger Cup will attract three times as many spectators as an international friendly between the two teams. The National Consolation Cup will attract twice as many spectators as an international friendly between the two teams. The Divisional Challenger Cup will also attract twice as many fans. The Divisional Consolation Cup will attract 50% more spectators than what an international friendly between the two teams.

The home side gets 2/3 of the crowd revenue and the away side gets 1/3. In the last six rounds the teams split the revenue 50/50. In general, fans aren't very interested in the first couple of rounds of the cup, but their interest will increase as it goes on. Additionally, the fans of a lower division team will want to see a match against a higher division side, but the reverse is not true. The best teams in the cup also get some prize money as shown in the table below. There is no top scorer award for the cup.

National Cup

Getting a friendly

The easiest way to get a friendly is to add your team to the friendly pool on the challenge page. Choose what kind of match and opponent you would like, and then the pool will automatically match your team against another team and book a friendly (as soon as you meet the criteria set by a team that matches your criteria).

As long as you are out of the cup, and have not already booked a friendly, you can challenge any opponents that are also without a game. Some teams may be unavailable for challenges due to their preferences or Manager License status.

All of your challenges (including ones from teams who have challenged you) are shown on the "Challenges" page. Once a friendly has been arranged, it will appear on the fixtures page, and you can select your team in the normal fashion.

Season break friendlies

During weeks 15 and 16 of the season you will also be able to play friendlies during the weekend, as long as they do not clash with a qualification match.

During this period, challenging someone for a friendly will work a little differently. When making the challenge, a drop down will appear where you can select if the challenge is for a mid-week or weekend friendly.

The challenge window for weekend matches, whether they are international or domestic, will be from Monday at 06:00 to Friday at 23:59.

Friendly match types

There are two types of friendly matches: normal and cup rules. With cup rules the match is decided after extra time (and perhaps penalties) if there's a tie after full time.

International friendlies

You can choose to play abroad or invite a team from another country to your stadium. If you are playing abroad, the match will be played at the stadium local match time. For example, if you are playing in Portugal, the match will be played at the regular Portuguese Wednesday match time (i.e. 9:45pm Central European Time CET).

Regardless of to where you're traveling, your team will leave at 6:00 p.m. (CET) on Tuesday and return by 8:00 a.m. (CET) on Thursday. International friendlies must be booked by Tuesday 6:00 p.m. (CET) at the latest, and you can't book a new friendly until your team has returned home on Thursday. If your team didn't play an international friendly, you can start booking an international friendly for the next week at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday.

Each trip abroad will cost you 6 000 US$, but international friendlies tend to attract more fans.

Miscellaneous

The crowd turnout for a friendly is considerably less than for a competitive match . Friendlies with cup rules attract more than normal friendlies, and international friendlies attract even more.

Confidence and team spirit are not affected, nor are fans or their mood. However, the injury risk isn't reduced just because it's a friendly.

Playing on neutral ground

If you want to play a friendly without either team getting the home team advantage, you can choose to play on neutral ground. But if you play in a stadium in your own region, you will still get the home team advantage (even if you are listed as the away team). The stadium owner will not earn any money from these friendlies.

No matter where you choose to play, any match played against a foreign team is considered to be an international friendly.

Creating or joining a tournament

Hattrick Arena has a flexible tournament creation system. It is possible to join tournaments created by others or create one for yourself and your friends, using customized rules to make the competition more interesting.

As the creator of a tournament, you can decide on all aspects of the tournament. Name, format, size, match times, and special rules such as allowing only a certain category of players (homegrown, minimum, or maximum age) or setting a salary or power rating limit for participating teams.

Everyone can set up a tournament using Hattrick Credits. Creating or entering tournaments for free is also possible if you are a Gold, Platinum, or Diamond Supporter.

Match days in the Arena

Matches in Hattrick Arena competitions are played on neutral grounds, and they don't give you any income from spectators (and no new members to your fan club).

Divisional Battles and Trophies

You will also find several official contests in Hattrick Arena. These are created by Hattrick, and you can participate for free of charge if invited.

In Division Battles, you and the other managers in your series compete together against the other series in your division. Every round, your series is drawn against a different series, where each of the participating teams will face one of the teams from the other. The goal is to be celebrated as the best series of your division at the end of the season!

Hattrick also organizes two Trophy tournaments, both played during the pre-season. The Generation Trophy is a tournament where managers who started playing Hattrick around the same time are matched against each other.

The Supporter Trophy is an invitational tournament for all current Hattrick Supporters.

Hattrick Arena effects in detail

All the details you need to know about Arena matches are listed here:

• Team spirit: Team spirit is set to a fixed level (content) in Hattrick Arena matches.
• Team confidence: Confidence is always set to a fixed level (wonderful) in Arena matches.
• Injuries: No injuries will occur in Arena matches, but if your player already has an injury from a regular Hattrick match, they will not be able to play.
• Cards (Own Tournaments): Tournaments have their own card status and have a completely different system of red/yellow cards from 'normal' Hattrick. Cards received in a tournament only count for matches in that tournament. If a player acquires a red card in 'normal' Hattrick, they can still play in tournament matches.
• Cards (Ladders): Cards don't count in ladder tournaments.
• Training: Players don't receive training from tournament matches.
• Experience: Players don't gain experience from tournament matches.
• Formations: Your current formation experience in 'normal' Hattrick is used for tournament matches. However, you do not gain formation experience from tournament matches.

Ladder contests

In a ladder, your goal is to reach the highest rung and become the 'King of the Hill' - then stay there for as long as you can. To reach the top, you challenge other teams listed above you in the ladder. If you win, you take their place in the ladder.

Challenge Rules

Your current position in the ladder affects which teams you are able to challenge.

The challenger pays for the match with Credits, and challenged teams automatically accept the challenge. The match is played 24 hours after the challenge is made. If the challenger wins, the Credit will be refunded.

Position Changes after the Match

If you challenge a team and win, you take the position of the team you challenged. The challenged team moves down one position. This applies to all teams between the two teams in the ladder.

Example: Team A is in position 54 and challenges B, currently 47. If A wins, A takes position 47 from B. B moves down to position 48, and the team that held position 48 moves down to 49, the team that held position 49 moves down to 50, and so on.

If you challenge a team and lose, both teams stay in their respective places.

Challenge Grace Periods

A team cannot challenge you for twelve hours after the time your current challenge match begins. This gives you a chance to challenge a team yourself, and climb the ladder.

After a match in which you were the challenger, you can't challenge another team for 12 hours (from the start of the match). This is to give other teams a chance to challenge you. It is also to prevent scenarios where, for example, #2 always immediately challenges #1, making it impossible for #3 to challenge #1 and win that position.

National team competitions

The National teams compete against each other in three interconnected tournaments. The continental championships, the Nations Cup and the actual World Cup. The competition cycle spans two seasons. It starts with the continental championships for European, American, African and Asia/Oceania leagues and ends with the World Cup.

The Nations Cup is a lesser tournament for teams that did not reach the World Cup and is played in parallel to the World Cup.

National teams follow their own card status, and have a completely separate system of red / yellow cards from 'normal' Hattrick. As such, any card received in a NT/U21 match will only count for the matches that are part of that NT/U21 competition. Equally, should a player be red carded in normal Hattrick, he will still be able to play in a NT/U21 match. Cards are reset at the end of each competition (or when the team is eliminated from that competition).

Continental championships

Every National team in Hattrick is guaranteed a place in their continental championship. These continental championships are played in groups of 6 teams. Groups are seeded based on the National Team ranking (see below).

The continental championships has a Round-Robin format (double matches - home away) and lasts for 10 weeks with quarter finals, semi finals and finals in the last week.

The best 8 teams in every region, based on their position, points, goals difference, and goals scored, will play quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals, while the rest of the National Coaches can schedule friendlies on Fridays. In the quarter-finals, the top 4 teams (based on position, points, goal difference, scored goals, and random if all else is equal) randomly face the bottom 4 teams that qualified to the quarter-finals. Two teams from the same group will not face each other in the quarters. The winner will be named continental champion and awarded a gold trophy. Silver and bronze trophies will be awarded to the teams placing 2nd and 3rd-4th respectively.

World Cup

The World Cup starts in week 13 of the first season and lasts for the rest of season 1 and the entire season 2. It is divided into 5 rounds, followed by semi finals and finals.

96 teams participate in the Round 1 in 16 groups of 6 teams in a Round-Robin format. The first 4 of each group will proceed to Round 2, while the rest are disqualified.

Round 2 will have 16 groups of 4 teams in a Round-Robin format and the first 2 of each group will proceed to Round 3.

In Round 3 we have 8 groups with 4 teams where they play one match with every opponent in a neutral venue and the top 2 of each group promote to Round 4.

Round 4 and Round 5 will have four and two groups respectively, with four teams in each. Each team will play the other once at a neutral site, and the top two of each group will promote to the next round.

Both the semi finals and the final are in neutral venues. The winner of the final is named World champion, and is awarded a gold trophy. Silver and bronze trophies are awarded to the runner-ups.

Before each round, Team Spirit and Team Confidence will fully or partially reset to the reset values. For example, if the current team spirit is at level 9 and the reset value is 5 with the 80% reset, your team spirit will be decreased by (9 - 5) * 0.8 = 3.2 levels. Reset and midpoint values for the daily updates, for both Team Spirit and Team Confidences are 5.0.

Nations Cup

Teams that did not manage to qualify for the World Cup will play in the Nations Cup, which takes place alongside the World Cup. This tournament is played in the Swiss format tournament (similar to the Supporter Week Trophy).

This is not merely a consolation tournament, but can be important for smaller teams as the final standings in the Nations Cup are used for seeding the next continental championship. At the end of the Nations Cup, during the semifinals and finals of the World Cup, the top 8 teams will have a knockout tournament, in which the top 4 teams (based on position, points, goal differential, scored goals, and random, if all else is equal) randomly face the bottom 4 teams that qualified for the quarterfinals. The winner will take home a trophy.

During the Nations Cup, players cannot be injured, but cards work as in any other tournament. Formation experience will carry over from the Continental Championship, with the possibility to reset formation experience just like before the World Cup, and then be updated as normal after every Nations Cup match.

The winner is awarded the Nations Cup trophy.

World Cup qualification

96 teams progress from the Continental championships to the World Cup.

Each continent has their own World Cup slots, which are awarded to the best-placed teams in each group of the Regional Cup group stage. As you can see in the table below, Europe has 32 slots, Asia-Oceania 21 slots, Africa 12, and the Americas 20.

A number of wildcard slots will be awarded to teams that did not qualify directly through the group stage of the Regional Cups. With 11 available wildcards, the best 22 non-qualifying teams will be selected for a wildcard playoff, with the winners earning spots in the World Cup. Wildcard teams are determined by points and goal difference in Regional Cup group stages.

In the wildcard playoff, the team with the highest ranking (a ranking based also on previous World Cup results) will be matched against the team with the lowest ranking, and the team with second highest ranking with the team of the second lowest ranking, and so forth. The playoff is played home and away, with a complete reset of Team Spirit and Team Confidence before the first match. In case of a tie, the second match will have extra time and penalties.

National Team ranking

Each National Team has its own ranking, which seeds the Regional Cup group draw. The last five seasons have an impact for this ranking, but this effect decays over time, meaning recent performances have more effect on the ranking than older performances.

Three factors affect rankings: the result of each match (M), the importance of the match (I), and the strength of the opposing team (T). The formula used to calculate the ranking is: P = M x I x T

For the variable T, we subtract the ranking of the opponent team from the number 250.

Then, the final ranking is the average number of points (P) of the last 5 seasons weighted 100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 20%, with the 100% being the current season and the 20% four seasons in the past. Rankings are updated after every match.

Continental championship draw

We use the National Team Ranking to create the seeding for the Continental Championship draw pots. The first position of each group is always reserved for the top teams, where Group 1 will get the top team, Group 2 the second team, etc. Then there are five draw pots, one for each position in the group, filled with the rest of the teams sorted by their Ranking. For example, in the Americas Championship, there are five groups of six teams. The first position in each group is filled by the top five teams, based on their Ranking. The second positions are filled by teams six to ten, the third position by teams 11 to 15, etc. During the live draw, we work through each groups until all pots are empty and all groups are fully populated.

World Cup draw

The team ranking from the current season will determine the seed of that team in the World Cup draw. There are 16 groups in the World Cup's first round, and the first team for each group is picked automatically. The top ranked European team from the Continental Championships (EU#1 in the table below) will always be the first team picked for Group 1, and the team ranked 8 in the Americas will always be the first team picked in Group 16.

Once one team is assigned to a group, all other teams are picked during a live draw. The ranking from the Continental championship is still very important, but instead of being assigned directly to a group, teams are put into draw pots. If you keep looking at the table below, the column for "Team 2" shows four teams will be put in the first draw pot. These are the teams ranked 8, 7, 6, and 5 in Africa. Out of this pot they are assigned as the second team to Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4, as decided by the draw. Four new teams are entered into the second draw pot and drawn for Groups 5, 6, 7, and 8. This process continues until all 16 groups are filled.

The system is broadly deterministic, making sure all the best teams from the strongest continents are not in the same groups. But, at the same time, we wanted a random element to prevent teams from intentionally influencing the World Cup draw. This could happen if teams still in a Continental Cup lost matches on purpose in an effort to determine the World Cup groups. The random element also makes the live draw much more fun.

EU: Europe
AME: the Americas
AFR: Africa
ASO: Asia-Oceania
WS: Wildcard slot

Elections

Elections are held at the beginning of the season, starting the two days after the World Cup Final. Every second season managers elect a National Team coach, and every second season managers elect a U21 coach. Each coach is elected for 2 seasons, ending their term about a week after the World Cup Final. Note that you will need to have played Hattrick for at least 1 season in order to be able to vote in the National Team elections.

Voting power

You can only vote once in an election. However, this vote may gain extra weight in the final tally. This system of voting power rewards commitment to the game, but the main reason for it is to make it harder to manipulate elections.

If you are a local team, you receive your first vote after 1 season in the game. You then gain a second vote after 5 seasons in the game, a third vote after 10 seasons, and a fourth vote after 15 seasons. Local teams can receive a total of 4 votes this way.

If you are voting for an additional team, you receive your first vote after two seasons and a second and final seniority vote after 10 seasons.

All users also get up to two engagement votes, depending on how active their team management has been. We will not explain exactly how these work, to make it harder to manipulate them. They have been designed to be very easy to achieve for any normally managed team, but very tedious to achieve if you are maintaining a set of fake teams. Please note that as a user, you will not see the exact weight your vote has. We will just explain the principles behind the system.

The National Team squad

The national coach picks up to 26 players (from teams with active managers) from the pool of players with the right nationality. In terms of age requirements, U21 players must be at least 19 years old and National Team players at least 22 years old. After choosing players, the NT coach can see the same data for the National Team players as managers do for their own team.

Each national team has their own formation experience, and at the start of every continental championship and World Cup/Nations Cup, national coaches will have about a week to decide which six formations will have formidable experience, while the rest will start from poor. There are two selection periods: the first one is from the day the election ends up to the Team Spirit and Team Confidence reset the day before the first match for continental championships. The second one starts in Week 12 and runs up to the Team Spirit and Team Confidence reset in Week 13.
Please note that NT/U21 teams' daily updates take place every day at 03:00am HT-Time.

Having a National Team player

If one of your players is on the National Team, their ability to play for your team will be unaffected. National Team matches and club games are typically played on separate days, so your player is always available to you. Matches for the National Team will not give your player any training, however, there is the risk of injury.

There are several benefits for your club if your player gets to play a match with the National Team:

- You will get a 33% or 40% salary reduction of the player's salary, depending on whether they are playing in a foreign team or their home country.

- The player gains a lot of experience. The amount of experience varies depending on the match type. In descending order: World Cup finals and semifinals, World Cup matches, Continental Championship finals, semifinals, and quarterfinals, then Continental Championship matches, the National Cup, and finally National Team friendlies.

- If a player is injured and has to leave a National Team match, the club will be compensated 100% of the player's base salary for the estimated number of weeks the injury is expected to last. This is in addition to the regular salary reduction.

There are no injuries in national team friendly matches.

Note that you are expected not to undermine National Teams through sabotaging your National Team player(s). National Team administrators, as a last resort, have the discretion to release players to the transfer market in the event of sabotage.

If you consider running for office, or if you just want more information, we recommend that you read the rules for national teams.

World Cup Schedule - Season 1

World Cup Schedule - Season 2

Fixtures

256 teams can participate in the Masters and it is played as a straight cup with 8 rounds. The draw for each round is completely randomized, and the matches are played on neutral grounds.

If there are not enough teams to fill up the first round completely, some lucky teams (selected randomly) will skip the first round and join the action in the second round. If any of the cup or league winners have become ownerless (or changed owner), they may not participate in the Masters. If a team wins both league and cup in the same season, they will be the only team from that nation participating in the Masters.

Special tournament rules

There are some special rules that apply to the Masters:

Card and Injuries: Cards do not matter (except red cards in the game, of course), but injuries are recorded as normal.

Team Attitude: Playing "Match of the Season" (MOTS) or "Play it Cool" (PIC) will not decrease/increase your team spirit as much as it would after a regular match. The effect during the match is the same as during a regular match, though.

Training: Masters games do not count toward a player's training.

Masters income

The home and the away team split the crowd revenue 50/50. The best teams also get some prize money as shown below.

The Hattrick Masters winner gets 800 000 US$, the runner-up gets 400 000 US$, and the two losing semifinalists each get 200 000 US$. The losing quarterfinalists each get 100 000 US$ and the losing last-sixteen teams each get 50 000 US$.

Start an additional club

You can start an additional club at any time. Your additional club can play in the same country as your primary club or in another country, as long as there is space available in that country.

Additional clubs will start with some initial funds (just as any other new club), but owners will not need to do the manager license.

General rules

You can have up to two additional clubs.

You will not be able to make any transfers between your clubs and you also can't buy players where the other team would either receive mother club or previous club money.

Additional club in the same country

Your primary and additional clubs will not be able to play in the same series or meet each other in a qualifier, nor meet each other in the cup (with the exception of the final). Both clubs can play at the same series level, but in different series.

In the unlikely, but not impossible, situation where three teams of the same user end up in the semi-finals, obviously one of the teams will face a sister team.

If one club is already playing in the top series, and another earns promotion to this series, the club promoting will not be allowed to advance. That spot will instead go to the team, among those that should have demoted from the top division, that finished with the highest rank. This will be processed after the qualifiers have been played.

If both clubs promote to the top series in the same season, only the primary club will get to promote.

Additional club in another country

The number of additional club spots available for "foreign" managers in a country depends on how many clubs are unused in that country, something that depends on how big the country is and how many users are already playing in it.

A minimum of 50% of the clubs in a country are reserved for local users. So, in a league with 168 clubs, at least 84 of them are reserved for local users (and the other 84 slots can be taken by any manager, local or foreign). But if a country is 90% full, the remaining slots will be reserved for local users only.

Switch series in switching window

Just like for primary clubs, it is possible for additional clubs to switch series (where possible) in the series-switching window in between seasons. Keep in mind that it is not possible to switch to a series where you have another club playing.

Flags

Flags are collected by clubs separately, additional clubs have their own flag collections.

Playing against an additional club rewards flags just as playing any other club would, and the additional club is rewarded flags for its own collection.

Achievements

Achievements are achieved by the manager, and achievements are, as such, saved for each user and not for each club.

Voting in elections

You will not be able to vote in national team elections in the country of your additional club. You can only vote in the country of your primary club.

Bankruptcy

If your primary club goes bankrupt you will also lose access to your additional club.

If your additional club goes bankrupt you can start a new one 16 weeks after the date you started your previous additional club (so if you've had your additional club for more than 16 weeks you can start a new club immediately).

Close additional club

You can close your additional club at any time. But if you close your additional club, you'll have to wait at least 16 weeks from when you started your previous additional club until you can start a new one.

Platinum/Diamond subscription expiration

If your Platinum, extra club license or Diamond subscription expires, you will still be the manager of your additional club for one more week, after this week you will no longer be able to manage it. 7 weeks after the expiration, the system will disconnect your additional club. If you purchase Platinum, a extra club license or Diamond again during these 7 weeks you will get access to your additional club again. But if you don't, the club will become ownerless and you will not be able to return to it.