Houston Hippopotami at Hattrick (Alliterative, isn't it?)

[sterlingice]

Hippopotami on the Move
While we are waiting for the old boards to be moved over here, I figured I'd continue the adventures of the illustrious Hippopotami on the new board.

EDIT: I have now moved over the Hippopotami thread, link below.

Hippopotami Introduction: Hippopotami Hattrick Prequel (Old Board Conversion)

Supporter
I probably should have saved my money for more frivolous things like, well, food. However, I decided to take the plunge and get a 3 month supporter pass. This opens up a whole new mess of things to play around with and play around I will. I'll get my $5 worth

Even before I announced I was doing this (hell, this is the first I've announced of it)- ausonny and his Bees signed up as supporters of the Hippopotami so I promptly added my name to his list of supporters. I understand that you only get 5 so I would like to have some sort of rivalry or something before I choose to support a team. I think he just pities my team for the two drubbings that have resulted in a 15-2 margin of victory for his Bees.

My second supporter spot will be given to Dataking's Screamin' Seamen as he is the reason I found my way to these boards. I've never even played FOF, but I was regaled with tales of the board and many of its interesting dynasties. Before long, I found myself reading and writing here. So the quick and dirty moral of the story is that any hate mail directed at me should also include a tomato his way as well.

Currently, I'm not rushing out to use my supporter spots unless there is a call for it.

Guestbook!
Anyone who wants to post in the guestbook is more than welcome! Even more, any FOFCer is invited and I would greatly appreciate any addition to my guestbook. I want to hear from anyone and everyone here.

Press Announcement and Federations
I'm still trying to work my way around with the new supporter features. I have yet to find out how This may sound like a stupid question but "how do I do a press announcement"? Also, what are the advantages/disadvantages of being in a federation? Is there an FOFC federation?

Numbers
I now have numbers for all of my players and a system, to boot. The next post will be the entire roster including their number and the system.

Team Image
I am currently looking for a team image. Anyone knowing where to find good Hippopotamus graphics with permission is asked to PM the Hippopotami's PR department. I didn't think finding a good hippopotamus graphic would be so hard, but I was wrong.

SI

[sterlingice]

CURRENT ROSTER
After a few early changes, this is our current roster. We probably will not be adding to it for a little while, at least until we are back in the black which should be in 3 weeks. We may not do a whole lot of transferring this year since we are in debt and 3 of our last 4 games are on the road.

Note, for ratings
Bold Italic is for any rating above Solid
Bold is for passable, solid
Italic is for weak, inadequite

THE NUMBERS
The Hippopotami have a rich three-day old tradition of following a numbering scheme. Like NFL teams, where recievers wear 80s and offensive linemen wear 60s and 70s, so, too, do the Hippopotami have a numbering scheme.
1-3 Goalies - Our franchise goalie will always wear #1
4-9 Defenders - Any other single digit is a defender or defensive wing
10-19 Midfield - Middies and Wings wear numbers that start with 1
20-24 Forwards - The offense starts with a 2

COACH
We got exceedingly lucky with a great coach after only my second try to replace the old coach. Ricky Braden is young, but with great experience and is a solid coach. We couldn't have asked for a better coach! Coach is now and ever will be number 25 unless we change the numbering system.

Ricky Braden (7583297) #25
33 years, wretched form, healthy
A solid coach who goes all out
A controversial person who is calm and upright.
Has brilliant experience and weak leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 0 US$
Wage: 500 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: disastrous
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous
Passing: disastrous
Winger: wretched
Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous
Set Pieces: disastrous

Goalkeepers
Raduli is the man for years to come and Lopes is a decent trainee but will see limited playing time as long as Raduli is healthy. There is a reason I paid nearly $100K for him and plucked him from his native Polska- he's our future and a damn fine goalie. Speaking of an international flavor- Lopes is from Portugal.

Dawid Raduli (5973248) #1
19 years, weak form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is fiery and upright.
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Nationality: Polska
Assessed value: 144 000 US$
Wage: 1 608 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: poor
Goaltending: passable
Playmaking: disastrous
Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous
Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous
Set Pieces: disastrous

Augusto Almeida Lopes (7722984) #2
18 years, inadequate form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is calm and honest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.
Nationality: Portugal
Assessed value: 31 000 US$
Wage: 816 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: disastrous
Goaltending: weak
Playmaking: disastrous
Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous
Defending: disastrous
Scoring: disastrous
Set Pieces: weak

Defense
Of all the places on our team, this needs the most work. We really only have one guy I'm happy with and another I'm satisfied with. Hebert is here to stay, especially after he bumped up to "passable" defense last week. Slingerland is competent, especially if I can bump his defense up to passable but he seems best suited to backup. I desperately need a shutdown solid middle defender. Also, I would love to get another middie so I can play a 4-5-1.

Klaas Slingerland (5914816) #4
24 years, inadequate form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and upright.
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Nationality: Nederland
Assessed value: 53 000 US$
Wage: 1 056 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: poor
Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: poor
Set Pieces: poor
Career Goals: 1
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Zlatko Koch (3837419) #6
26 years, inadequate form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is calm and honest.
Has wretched experience and wretched leadership abilities.
Nationality: Österreich
Assessed value: 60 000 US$
Wage: 1 152 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: passable
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched
Passing: weak
Winger: weak
Defending: passable
Scoring: inadequate
Set Pieces: wretched
Career Goals: 4
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 1
Cup goals this season: 0

Hugh Hebert (7555483) #7
22 years, solid form, healthy
A controversial person who is temperamental and honest.
Has disastrous experience and disastrous leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 39 000 US$
Wage: 680 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 2
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: wretched
Playmaking: weak
Passing: poor
Winger: inadequate
Defending: passable
Scoring: wretched
Set Pieces: weak
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Thomas Rosenthal (7232432) #8
28 years, inadequate form, healthy
A nasty fellow who is temperamental and dishonest.
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 76 000 US$
Wage: 1 020 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 1
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate
Passing: disastrous
Winger: wretched
Defending: passable
Scoring: [/b]passable[/b]
Set Pieces: inadequate
Career Goals: 2
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 1
Cup goals this season: 0

Wingers
Mick Starks is our captain and star. Typically he plays an offensive wing on one side or the other. I like to switch it up to keep defenses guessing. Crespo is a pretty good number 2 and he is the set pieces man. Eventually I will have to upgrade and he will get older but for now, he's definately our second best option. Balbuena is a trainee but his periphery stats mean he doesn't have much of a future with no other nice skills. Storm Jordan has our coolest name and is a decent veteran backup. I could stand to get a legit winger trainee who can score opposite Starks but that is off in the future.


Mick Starks (7555487) #13
24 years, inadequate form, healthy
A nasty fellow who is balanced and honest.
Has poor experience and passable leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 184 000 US$
Wage: 1 600 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: passable
Winger: solid
Defending: weak
Scoring: passable
Set Pieces: inadequate
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

José Alberto Balbuena (7793123) #14
19 years, inadequate form, healthy
A controversial person who is temperamental and infamous.
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities.
Nationality: Argentina
Assessed value: 13 000 US$
Wage: 672 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: disastrous
Winger: passable
Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor
Set Pieces: weak
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Alfredo Crespo (7555478) #16
27 years, weak form, healthy
A controversial person who is balanced and honest.
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 90 000 US$
Wage: 1 100 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: solid
Winger: passable
Defending: weak
Scoring: poor
Set Pieces: solid
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Storm Jordan (7555477) #19
26 years, weak form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and honest.
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 30 000 US$
Wage: 720 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched
Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable
Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate
Set Pieces: wretched
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Middies
It always bugs me that we seem to get wretched ratings on middies. We have four main middies and three are solid with the fourth at passable for playmaking. Also, they all tend to have either decent passing, scoring, or defense, as well. Stamina is lacking a bit but these next couple of weeks, we will be working on it. Typically, I start Acker, Connors, and Benito. Benito's passable playmaking is more than made up for by his strong stats at scoring, defense, and passing. With some stamina improvement, Paz might see some more playing time. Paige is pretty good and pretty young so he makes the perfect trainee. Ideally, Paz and Benito will eventually be sold to get an uber #1 middie to play alongside Acker and Connors who are a fine #2 and #3.

Kyle Paige (7555474) #10
20 years, inadequate form, healthy
A nasty fellow who is temperamental and honest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.
Speciality: Quick
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 11 000 US$
Wage: 540 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: disastrous
Goaltending: wretched
Playmaking: passable
Passing: weak
Winger: weak
Defending: weak
Scoring: wretched
Set Pieces: inadequate
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Stephen Connors (7555486) #12
23 years, passable form, healthy
A controversial person who is calm and upright.
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 65 000 US$
Wage: 860 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: solid
Passing: weak
Winger: poor
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: poor
Set Pieces: inadequate
Career Goals: 1
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 1
Cup goals this season: 0

Carlos Alberto Benito (7555476) #15
21 years, passable form, healthy
A popular guy who is calm and honest.
Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 146 000 US$
Wage: 1 220 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: wretched
Playmaking: passable
Passing: solid
Winger: wretched
Defending: weak
Scoring: inadequate
Set Pieces: poor
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Julius Acker (7555485) #17
21 years, inadequate form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is temperamental and infamous.
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities.
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 121 000 US$
Wage: 1 120 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: poor
Goaltending: wretched
Playmaking: solid
Passing: passable
Winger: passable
Defending: poor
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: disastrous
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Pedro Villavilla Paz (7555488) #18
27 years, inadequate form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is balanced and upright.
Has weak experience and weak leadership abilities.
Speciality: Powerful
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 47 000 US$
Wage: 720 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: wretched
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: solid
Passing: poor
Winger: wretched
Defending: weak
Scoring: inadequate
Set Pieces: inadequate
Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Forwards
We are fortunate to have 3 quality forwards, two of which I got cheap on the transfer market. Solomonm and Phelan lead the team with 3 goals. Phelan and Chang will be front line starters for us for years, hopefully. I'd love to see #22 and #23 there for into the future. It would be nice to get one more young trainee for offensive formations and to replace Solomon in a couple of years.

Derrick Solomon (2651563) #20
29 years, inadequate form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and honest.
Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Speciality: Technical
Nationality: Oceania
Assessed value: 29 000 US$
Wage: 936 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: solid
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: inadequate
Winger: poor
Defending: wretched
Scoring: passable
Set Pieces: solid
Career Goals: 10
Career Hattricks: 1
League goals this season: 3
Cup goals this season: 0

Edwin Phelan (7555484) #22
20 years, passable form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and upright.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.
Speciality: Technical
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 135 000 US$
Wage: 1 060 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: passable
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: poor
Passing: passable
Winger: inadequate
Defending: weak
Scoring: passable
Set Pieces: poor
Career Goals: 3
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 3
Cup goals this season: 0

Defoe Chang (6110091) #23
20 years, inadequate form, healthy
A controversial person who is fiery and dishonest.
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Nationality: England
Assessed value: 39 000 US$
Wage: 852 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: passable
Goaltending: wretched
Playmaking: poor
Passing: weak
Winger: wretched
Defending: weak
Scoring: passable
Set Pieces: disastrous
Career Goals: 1
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 1
Cup goals this season: 0

The Team
Well, there's the current team as well as some of the changes I would like to make. If I get those done, I could be a pretty competent IV team but that will take time and money to get there.

SI

[sterlingice]

Friendly
The Morrisville Morrisvillians, NevStar's team, was kind enough to challenge us to a home friendly next weeks. Next week, I'll likely be working on stamina and then a week of general to regain some form and then another pair of weeks on stamina and general to help build up my

Stadium!
Anyone coming to our house will now have the pleasure of playing in the new, expanded Hippodrome. I doubt we will be making changes for quite a while. We have a posh setup with extra VIP Boxes for everyone. We hope to have all of these seats filled tomorrow:

Arena: The Hippodrome
Belongs to: Houston Hippopotami
Country: USA
Region : Houston
Last improvement: 1/29/2003
Total capacity: 15692
Terraces: 9702
Basic seating: 3850
Seats under roof: 1740
Seats in VIP boxes: 400

Staff
Youth Squad: weak
Investment in the Youth squad: 5 000 US$ / week

Goaltending Coaches: 1
Assistant Coaches: 2
Sport Psychologists: 0
Spokepersons: 2
Economists: 0
Physiotherapists: 1
Doctors: 1

Not a huge staff and not much in the youth squad at the moment. That will all change in a couple of weeks. I want to get out of debt before I go all out with expenses, tho.

Training
Training Level: 90%
Training Type: Stamina
Coach: Ricky Braden
Team Spirit: composed
Confidence: decent

Formation experience
4-3-3: disastrous
4-5-1: poor
3-5-2: solid
5-3-2: disastrous
3-4-3: wretched
5-4-1: disastrous

(The experience with 4-4-2 is always excellent, which is the highest level of experience that can be attained.)

I'd like to work on a 4-5-1 but I just don't have the defenders for that. I think I may work on a 3-4-3 so I can have an offensive formation to go along with my defense. As I said above: the next few weeks will be Stamina, General, Stamina, General so I can improve my stamina and, ultimately, my midfield game. I have solid middies but never seem to get a good rating there and stamina is probably the reason.

League Standings

Series: V.62 (8435)
Country: USA
Level: 5 out of 5

 

Team                         G   Goals   Pts 
1. The Darksiders            7  36 - 4   18 
2. CC's Dragons              7  31 - 9   18 
3. Atlanta United            7  20 - 12  15 
4. The Flying Midgets        7  12 - 13   9 
5. Houston Hippopotami       7  10 - 15   9 
6. backflips                 7  6 - 24    6 
7. Tea Stealers              7  5 - 22    4 
8. Metal Mulisha             7  4 - 25    4 

Youth Pull
This week's youth pull isn't great but at least he's servicable for now. I don't have to fire him immediately but he'll likely find his way to the wire soon. At least he's 17 so there is hope for him.

Jack Foster (8062230)
17 years, passable form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is balanced and dishonest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.
Speciality: Head
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 5 000 US$
Wage: 520 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: weak
Winger: poor
Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: wretched

SI

[vex]

Do NOT train general!

[Poli]

I like training general occassionally. Why would you say NOT to do that?

[vex]

Because once you stop doing it, I have noticed, it's almost like you have to keep training it because if you stop, your form takes a nosedive. I trained it the first week I played and switched to stamina the week after that and I'm just now recovering.

[Poli]

I haven't seen that. I have often trained form. I feel it really helped propel me out of v.92. I trained form for 4 weeks straight. Maybe I would have been better off training something else, but I doubt it. With the team I was given, it's not like I had a wealth of young talent that would become all stars after a few weeks of training. I feel superior form is what got me over the top amongst a bunch of teams with similar talent.

[illinifan999]

I trained General for about 2 weeks. I saw improvements in form right away. Victor BRown who was at wretched moved up to weak. After two weeks, I trained playmaking. Still increases in form. Brown has moved up almost 50,000 in value, and his form is at inadequate I think now.

[DataKing]

Originally posted by sterlingice
My second supporter spot will be given to Dataking's Screamin' Seamen as he is the reason I found my way to these boards. I've never even played FOF, but I was regaled with tales of the board and many of its interesting dynasties. Before long, I found myself reading and writing here. So the quick and dirty moral of the story is that any hate mail directed at me should also include a tomato his way as well.

Gee thanks, I think.

Press Announcements: There is a drop-down box on the right hand side of your main team page. One of the options there is 'Change Press Announcement.' You only get 500 characters for each announcement, though, so you'll need to keep it short.

General Training: I have read mixed reviews regarding General training. Some people think it is a complete waste of time, while others seem to get good results from it. My take on it is that it can help your team form out a little bit, especially if a player's form curve is already on the rise. However, once you develop a good training program, it can be a waste of time. For my team, benefits to form does not compare with a lost week of training for 8 defenders. I use it sparingly. I only consider it if my starters' forms are lagging and I have a big match coming up.

I hope this helps.

[sterlingice]

Well, how about this for another training issue:

Is it best to stick with training the same thing or is it ok to rotate around while training. I don't really want to concentrate explicitly on one facet of the game (say, defending or playmaking) but if I could do something like a 6 week rotation where I do Stamina -> Defending -> Scoring -> Winger -> Playmaking -> Passing (and repeat), that would be idea. Which would mean I use the 3-5-2 and 4-5-1 for defending, winger, and playmaking weeks while I use 3-5-2 and 3-4-3 for scoring and passing weeks.

Or should I just concentrate on one or two things (say playmaking and defending) and run my team based on that where I look for guys on the transfer wire who have high stats everywhere else because I know I'll be training those couple of things. Also, this would involve running 3-5-2 (fixture) and 4-5-1 (friendlies) to maximize the number of people who get trained a week.

SI

[DataKing]

Here is my thinking regarding training strategy, though I'd be very interested in hearing what others have to say.

I have a long-range training strategy. By that I mean that I train the same thing (currently defending) for three or four seasons at a time, rather than doing some sort of rotating training program. The primary reason for this is because of the way training is handled in Hattrick. I will use defending as an example, because that is what I am most familiar with.

John Defense is a 17 year old player (the youngest possible) with a passable rating in defense. Given the best possible training program (a solid coach and 8 or 9 assistant coaches), it takes John 10 weeks to go to solid in defense. However, for every year that a player is over 17 years old, you add 1 week to the necessary amount of time to raise a level. If John were 20 years old, it would take him 13 weeks to improve.

With the rotation idea that you mentioned, John would only receive six weeks of training out of 30 possible weeks (approximately two seasons), so he would be a passable defender (about halfway to solid) by the time he reached 19 years of age. He may reach solid in his next 6 week rotation, but will then be 21 years old before he gets more training. Now, it will take him 14 weeks to reach excellent level. The older a player gets, the more diminished the returns you get on his training.

All of this is academic, of course, unless you take into account the way that the transfer market works. As you go up in skill levels on the transfer market, the price of a player increases geometrically, not arithmetically. Look at the approximate sale values of 21 year old defenders:

Passable (I just sold one): $25,000
Solid: $150,000
Excellent: $400,000
Formidable: $1,000,000 (at least)
Outstanding: $2,000,000 (at least)

If using a rotation system, you could raise 22 players from passable to solid skill level in two seasons, the net increase would be about $2,750,000 (22 * $125,000).

Using a system devoted to one skill, in my example defending, you could potentially train 10 players from passable level to excellent level in 2 seasons. The resulting value increase would be $3,750,000 (10 * $375,000).

And that is only at the low end of the scale. If you're talking about starting with solid trainees, then the numbers are even more weighted.

This system assumes that all of the players that you are training are 17 or 18 years old. It's a lot easier (and less expensive) to get 10 17 or 18 year olds in the first place, than it is to field a team of 22.

Well, this post has certainly become a lot longer than I originally intended. Allow me to say one thing more. After four seasons of training defending (of which I am in the middle of the second), I intend to keep the 3 best young defenders I have, sell the rest off for a truck load of cash, and use that money to improve the general quality of my team elsewhere, as well as buy trainees for whatever I will train next (leaning towards playmaking or winger).

Personally, I think the rotation system would be a long hard road before any sort of payoff was seen. But the decision is yours to make, naturally.

And like I said, I would be very interested in hearing what others thoughts are on the matter.

[sterlingice]

Training
I'll still be considering this over the next few days. But today is the day for some less formal information about the team.

Team Colors
As Hippopotamuses are only grey/black, I figured I could go with pretty much any color I wanted but I wanted something with a dark look. At first, I kindof liked the idea of dark red and black as those seem like Hippo colors but then I decided on purple and black. Also thought dark green socks sounded like a good idea even though they look like black to me. Our color schemes are as follows: (any thoughts?)

Match Kit
Shirt: Black
Shorts: Purple
Socks: Dark Green

Reserve Kit
Shirt: Purple
Shorts: Black
Socks: Dark Green

Fan Club
I have no idea what to call my fan club so at the moment, they are the other grammatically correct version of Hippopotamus, Hippopotamuses.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hippopotamus

hip·po·pot·a·mus
n. pl. hip·po·pot·a·mus·es or hip·po·pot·a·mi (-m)

Club Logo
Do you know how hard it is to find a hippopotamus graphic that isn't cute? I don't want a "cute" Hippo picture- geez! Anyone know where I can find some Hippo graphic art outside of standard channels (excite, google, etc).

Why Hippopotami?
I'm sure most people have asked "Why have the 'river horse' as a mascot for a soccer team? It just doesn't make sense unless this person has an unhealthy fascination with the animals?" First, I leave the unhealthy obsessions with animals to my girlfriend who has over 100 stuffed cows (she's from Iowa- go figure). I have no crazy fascination with the animals but a few years ago I was trying to come up with some sort of large, offensive-lineman-type animal for my team and thus the Houston Hippopotami were born.

Reminder
Anyone in FOFC who hasn't signed my guest book is welcome to. In the next couple of days, I hope to be making the rounds to all of the FOFC teams and getting to their books but with homework calling today it will probably have to wait.

SI

[sterlingice]

Preview
A win today puts us in fourth, four fixture wins in a row after taking over the team, putting that 0-4 and no goals from when I took over a bad memory. Our game last week was close, 3-2, but we are in the new Hippodrome so hopefully we can win by a more comfortable margin. Also, let's see if we can fill the new statdium completely up.

Game Summary
Date: 2/3/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 4591296
Arena: The Hippodrome
Crowd: 15174


Weather conditions were fairly good for football, and The Hippodrome saw a crowd turnout of 15174. Hippopotami tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. They fielded: Raduli - Hebert, Koch, Rosenthal - Starks, Benito, Acker, Connors, Crespo - Solomon, Phelan.

Midgets started off with a 4-4-2 lineup. The following players had been chosen: Ram - Kearney, Lugo, Bond, Roca - Stern, Griffith, Kok-Chong, Storey - Blombom, O'Keeffe.

Hippopotami were very close to putting themselves one up in the 12th minute as Alfredo Crespo got through, but failing in concentration, he shot the ball wide. Midgets made a substitution in the 14:th minute. Curtis Bond limped off the field and was replaced by Thomas Aastrup. Hippopotamis Derrick Solomon gave, after 22 minutes, the home team a 1 - 0 lead after an attack coming in from the right. A bit later, a magnificent combination in the middle resulted in Hippopotami´s Edwin Phelan putting the lead up to 2 - 0. By now Hippopotami were drawing the troops back in order to defend their lead. Halftime score was 2 - 0. Hippopotami, bringing the final ball possession rate to 57 percent, dominated the battle.

After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, Hippopotami´s Hugh Hebert got himself booked. Midgets will have to do without Chu Kok-Chong for a time due to a bad foot injury. He was substituted by Trent Greenfield. Julius Acker behaved like an inexperienced youth player in the 52nd minute as he gave the ball away to an opponent. Lucky for him though, there was no goal. In the 52nd minute Hippopotami put themselves up 3 - 0. The visitors defenders lost the ball to Stephen Connors coming up from the left, who proceeded to cooly round the goaltender and knock the ball home. Hippopotami held the ball, with a clear 71 percent possession rate.

The most dominating Hippopotami player was without a doubt Edwin Phelan. Julius Acker on the other hand, had a terrible day. Midgets´s best player was Svarg Ram. Trent Greenfield was a disappointment, however. The match ends 3 - 0.

Stadium

SOLD SEATS

Terraces: 9594 (9702)
Basic seats: 3850 (3850)
Seats under roof: 1373 (1740)
VIP seats: 357 (400)
Total: 15174 (15692)

Not quite a sellout but very close. I guess a few less terraces and rich seats would have been better but still pretty good. Also, if I get a crowd like this every week, I'll be perfectly happy. I got nearly $80K with only $10K in upkeep.

Team Ratings

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: poor
Right Side Defence: inadequate
Central Defence: inadequate
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: solid
Left Side Attack: passable

The Flying Midgets
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: solid
Central Defence: excellent
Left Side Defence: passable
Right Side Attack: inadequate
Central Attack: weak
Left Side Attack: weak

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli **
DW Hugh Hebert **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Thomas Rosenthal **
WI Mick Starks (off) **~
MI Julius Acker *~
MI Stephen Connors **
MI Carlos Alberto Benito (off) **~
WI Alfredo Crespo *~
FO Derrick Solomon **
FO Edwin Phelan **~

Total player experience: wretched

Game Summary
Not to say I was taking this game for granted, but this game and the next should be relatively easy and then the real games begin. As ho-hum a game as there is. Thankfully my players are computer simulations instead of little people inside the computer or else they would probably be looking ahead, too.

Future Games
A game against the Metal Mulisha is the last of the easy ones against likely dead teams. Then the big boys come along: home against Atlanta and then an away against the Darksiders. If we can go 2-0, we're in the midst of a "playoff" hunt. If not (which is more likely), it's wait until next season when the team will be completely mine and I'll probably have a couple of new weapons at my disposal. Both Atlanta and the Darksiders are probably good enough to move up but Atlanta just took over even after I did and the Darksiders and CC will be slugging it out for the chance to advance.

 

Team                         G   Goals   Pts 
1. The Darksiders            8  38 - 4    21 
2. CC's Dragons              8  37 - 11   21 
3. Atlanta United            8  24 - 13   18 
4. Houston Hippopotami       8  13 - 15   12 
5. The Flying Midgets        8  12 - 16   9 
6. backflips                 8  8 - 30    6 
7. Tea Stealers              8  6 - 26    4 
8. Metal Mulisha             8  4 - 27    4 

Economy
Will make nearly $60K this week after the game. Without the game, however, it would have been a $25K defecit. This is all with only a $5K youth contribution. I may sell a player before too long to get on the happy side of positive. Then again, I may just work on playmaking instead of stamina and try to bump one of my four solid middies up to excellent and then sell one of the more dispensible ones. As you can see below, our supporters are up to "high on life"! Since hiring a spokesperson this past week earned another $3K for only her $1500 salary, I will be hiring another this week, bringing the count up to 3 and also, another assistant coach to help out with training.

Cash funds: -121 482 US$ (-63 454) US$
Sponsors: satisfied
Supporter Club: 601 members
Supporters: high on life

SI

[NevStar]

Wow, nice attendence. I knew there was a reason I challenged you at your stadium. I need to get me one of those shiny new stadiums.

[sterlingice]

Wow, nice attendence. I knew there was a reason I challenged you at your stadium. I need to get me one of those shiny new stadiums.

Unfortunately it plunged me into debt for about a month since I don't want to sell any of my good players and I really won't be able to spend much until next season as my schedule isn't very favorable for home games. As for friendlies- unfortunately I still only got 600 supporters at last week's home game against the Bees. Then again, the two weeks before that we had 700 for a rainy game and 1400(!!) against ardent's North County Raiders- but those were both away from here.

SI

[Poli]

My fans aim to please.

I totally support DK's thoughts on training. I just wish there was some way for me to get more forwards on the stinking field.

I like your color setup, btw.

Maybe The Hungry, Hungry, Hippos could be your supporter club and I'd think there would be a picture of the cartoon hippo from the commercial somewhere out there...

[sterlingice]

The Club and Logo
You know, ardent, you had a good idea. The club has been renamed the "Hungry Hungry Hippos". As for logo, I haven't had much of an opportunity to look. Ecko's logo would be great (with some color changes)... except that it's a rhino. Oh well. For coming up with the nickname, the North County Raiders will gain "honorary" sponsorship, meaning I'll sponsor you until I get a nice bribe to change my mind.

Finances
"14 new supporters signed up and paid 420 US$ in fees."
Also, despite the money drain, I think I'm going back up to $10K per week for the youth squad. Ideally, that could take care of all of our money troubles so a little investment goes a long way.

Training Dilemna
I need to isolate the players I will eventually transfer and those I want to keep. But that requires determining two things: what second formation I want to play and what I want to train. For this week, however, I will be training stamina as many of my players need help with that.

Friendly
As soon as I finish typing this up, I'm heading over to hattrick to figure out my formation for tomorrow's game. From our "second" team, I know Paz, Chang, and Paige will likely play. I may also throw our backup goalie Lopes in, as I have not played him since acquiring him off the transfer market and he needs to keep his form up. Don't think I'm letting up on you, Morrisville: Paz is still a solid playmaker, Chang a passable scorer, and Paige is a servicable wingbacker (weak/weak) with solid playmaking but no stamina. Lopes may not be Raduli but he's no slouch, either- he's young and wants to play.

Until next time, my Hungry Hungry Hippos.

SI

[Poli]

Originally posted by sterlingice
The Club and Logo
You know, ardent, you had a good idea. The club has been renamed the "Hungry Hungry Hippos". As for logo, I haven't had much of an opportunity to look. Ecko's logo would be great (with some color changes)... except that it's a rhino. Oh well. For coming up with the nickname, the North County Raiders will gain "honorary" sponsorship, meaning I'll sponsor you until I get a nice bribe to change my mind.

Until next time, my Hungry Hungry Hippos.

SI

Thank you. Good ideas only come so often, I have to share them rather quickly or I forget what the idea was about.

Good luck in your search. I hope no one is able to bribe you to change your mind although I wouldn't doubt it if a certain Frog met your price.

[sterlingice]

None as of yet, ardent- I think your spot is safe for quite a while.

As for today's game- I think I'll do a writeup tomorrow. Kindof looking for sleep tonight.

SI

[sterlingice]

Preview
You know, the 4-5-1 and a couple of subs against a relatively new team sounded like a good idea before game time. Needless to say, some impulses are better left not acted upon...

Game Summary
Date: 2/6/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 4984644
Arena: The Hippodrome
Crowd: 633


633 spectators had come to The Hippodrome this cloudy day. Hippopotami had chosen a strategic 4-5-1 formation. They fielded: Almeida Lopes - Hebert, Koch, Slingerland, Paige - Crespo, Acker, Starks, Villavilla Paz, Jordan - Chang.

Morrisvillians had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. Lineup: Negron - Bladin, Little, Lund - Sifres Belenguer, Stewart, Miller, Minton, Ribelles - Felton, Andersen.

Greger Bladin of Morrisvillians received a yellow card in the 2nd minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Hippopotami had obvious problems in finding their positions. After a fine move down the middle Defoe Chang nearly gave the home side one up in the 22nd minute. The finishing shot went just wide, though. The referee showed Hippopotamis Hugh Hebert the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. Hippopotami seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion about the organization of the team. One of many good passes from Gabriel Ribelles at the wing was recieved and skillfully taken care of by Alan Felton, scoring for Morrisvillians to 0 - 1. The visitors Greger Bladin took advantage of an error due to a misunderstanding between the home side´s goalie and full backs in the 38:th minute. 0 - 2 for Morrisvillians. In the game's 40:th minute Hippopotami´s Alfredo Crespo limped slightly after a late challenge, but he was able to continue. The teams went for a half-time break at 0 - 2. Morrisvillians, bringing the final ball possession rate to 58 percent, dominated the battle.

During the break Hippopotami´s coach went through the teams new tactics yet again. Ethan Miller came close to extending the visitors lead as he, completely unmarked in front of the goal, lifted a ball over Augusto Almeida Lopes, hitting the bar. Morrisvillians seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion about the organization of the team. The visitors Richard Stewart took advantage of an error due to a misunderstanding between the home side´s goalie and full backs in the 74:th minute. 0 - 3 for Morrisvillians. After this Morrisvillians lowered the tempo in order to concentrate on their defensive efforts. The visitors Søren Andersen took advantage of an error due to a misunderstanding between the home side´s goalie and full backs in the 75:th minute. 0 - 4 for Morrisvillians. Buster Minton behaved like an inexperienced youth player in the 76:th minute as he gave the ball away to an opponent. Lucky for him though, there was no goal. Buster Minton could have put his team up another one in the 77:th minute, after a rush down the left, but his closing shot hit the post. Hippopotami appeared unsure on how to play. Morrisvillianss Victoro Sifres Belenguer got himself booked after a foul. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Morrisvillians, with an impressive 59 percent possession of the ball.

Hippopotami´s best player was Hugh Hebert. Pedro Villavilla Paz was a disappointment, however. Most important Morrisvillians player was Alan Felton. However, Ethan Miller made a disastrous appearance. The match ends 0 - 4.
Stadium

SOLD SEATS

Terraces: 409 (9702)
Basic seats: 151 (3850)
Seats under roof: 57 (1740)
VIP seats: 16 (400)
Total: 633 (15692)

I hate to say it but I disappointed Morrisville. Just couldn't deliver that big of a crowd, even for a friendly.

Team Ratings

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: weak
Central Defence: inadequate
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: inadequate
Central Attack: poor
Left Side Attack: weak

Morrisville Morrisvillians
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: passable
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: weak
Right Side Attack: passable
Central Attack: inadequate
Left Side Attack: weak


Player Ratings
GK Augusto Almeida Lopes *
DW Hugh Hebert **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DM Klaas Slingerland *~
DW Kyle Paige *~
WI Storm Jordan *
MI Julius Acker *~
MI Pedro Villavilla Paz *
MI Mick Starks *~
WI Alfredo Crespo *~
FO Dafoe Chang **

Total player experience: wretched

Game Summary
Great game played by Morrisville left our subs in the dust. Hopefully some of this experience sinks in so the game isn't a total loss. Lopes was very disappointing. It may be time to get a backup inadequite goalie. Chang and Hebert were the only good signs. We need more backups to give them some quality experience time.

Economy
Ok, I think I have a new idea. While debt isn't so great, I need to get some guys in to train. I'm selling off Paz, who is a 27yo solid middie. I put his starting price at $50K, hopefully I can get that or I may have to just keep him. Also, 14 new supporters signed up to bring us to 629.

Friendly
Stockbridge Panthers FC from Michigan challenged us to a friendly. Since the Consolation Cup doesn't start for another week and I didn't have a game, I accepted and will be traveling to his place to play a game.

Training News
After that debacle, at least our 4-5-1 is up to passable now. I've decided to train playmaking since it plays best to our strength with 3 solids on our team (plus the one I am selling) and the 3-5-2 lends to training 3 guys well per week. I wanted to do scoring and 3-4-3 but I think that would be very detrimental to my team with the emphasis the game places on middies.

As for weekly changes. This is the second week in a row with no stat bumps. Oh well. At least now I have an idea what I want to do. For form, 7 went up and 6 down, 4-4 for my starters. As for value, I fared a bit better at 11-6, for starters it's 6-4. Hopefully next week will bring us better training.

New Hippopotamus
Along that vein of looking for new talent to train, I ran across a German midfielder for $16K who I think I can train to be pretty competent and either sell or keep. He doesn't have great periphery stats but a solid midfielder of 19 should fetch a handsome sum on the open market.

Philip Friedländer (7895342)
19 years, inadequate form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is balanced and honest.
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities.
Speciality: Technical
Nationality: Deutschland
Assessed value: 29 000 US$
Wage: 792 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: passable
Passing: poor
Winger: inadequate
Defending: poor
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: poor

SI

[sterlingice]

It's the Economy, Stupid
Well, I'm down to 82K in debt after last week. However, we have an away game and are still losing 26K this week even with only a 10K youth contribution. I think that is the way it will always be: lose money during the off weeks, make it during the on. I'll be hiring 2 more spokespeople as they have been increasing sponsor money more than $1500 per week.

FYI, one of our expenses was the purchase of midfielder trainee, Philip Friedländer. He was assigned the number 11, as it was the only midfielder number left.

Youth Pull
The good news: our youth squad is up to inadequite. The bad news: our youth pull doesn't show it. He has since been sacked.

Al Sawyer (8184955)
19 years, passable form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is calm and dishonest.
Has disastrous experience and passable leadership abilities.
Speciality: Powerful
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 2 000 US$
Wage: 500 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: disastrous
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched
Passing: poor
Winger: poor
Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: weak

Tenative Posting Schedule
This is more for me than anyone else but I think I will do the following on a weekly basis:

Sunday/Monday: Fixture Writeup
EDIT: Tuesday: Player of the Week, Where are they Now
Wednesday: Friendly Writeup
Friday: Training Update
Saturday/Sunday: Economy, Youth Update
Also, I will probably put up occasional posts about my roster and, of course, any breaking news will be posted as it happens. I really should do a player of the week profile but my team is still in flux somewhat so I don't want to do that until I'm on a bit more solid footing.

SI

[DataKing]

A Player of the Week profile is a damn good idea. I might just steal that one.

[Poli]

Sounds cool to me as well, but I'm not sure I'll take the time to do that...although Jerome Bettis needs more press.

[vex]

I'm just too lazy to do something like that.

[sterlingice]

Preview
This may be really dangerous, but I decided to do "Play It Cool" since the Mulisha are downright awful and I have two huge games coming up. This team is awful so hopefully we can still pull it out. We whooped them 4-0 a couple of weeks ago but that was at home. Still, they are last place and haven't had a new owner so I doubt they will turn it around.

Game Summary
Date: 2/10/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 4591300
Arena: Metal Mulisha Arena
Crowd: 4914

A scorching day at Metal Mulisha Arena, where 4914 spectators were in place for today´s match. Mulisha had chosen a strategic 4-4-2 formation. The following players had been chosen: Mcduffie - Cardenas, Singh, Labranche, Lang - Hannah, Forcier, Newcomb, Tharp - Rowland, Landry.

Hippopotami had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. They fielded: Raduli - Slingerland, Koch, Rosenthal - Starks, Benito, Acker, Connors, Crespo - Solomon, Phelan.

The 6:th minute saw the home team take a 1 - 0 lead after a leak in the visitors right side defense. Scorer for Mulisha was Reed Landry. Alfredo Crespo of Hippopotami received a yellow card in the 15:th minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Alfredo Crespo was dominating his wing and kept sending fine balls into the enemy box - Edwin Phelan managed to kick one of them into 1 - 1 in the 19:th minute. After 29 minutes Hippopotami put themselves up by 1 - 2 as Derrick Solomon finished off a strike from the left with a real cannon placed at the far post. After 32 minutes a combination in the middle resulted in a through ball for Edwin Phelan who increased Hippopotami´s lead to 1 - 3. By now Hippopotami were drawing the troops back in order to defend their lead. Julius Acker behaved like an inexperienced youth player in the 35:th minute as he gave the ball away to an opponent. Lucky for him though, there was no goal. Mulisha reduced the score in the 38:th minute to 2 - 3 when Gustavo Singh got the best of a ball floated in from the left. Halftime score was 2 - 3. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Hippopotami, with an impressive 66 percent possession of the ball.

In the 48:th minute the visitors put themselves ahead 2 - 4 as Derrick Solomon finished off an attack from the left with a spectacular scissors kick. Derrick Solomon came close to extending the visitors lead as he, completely unmarked in front of the goal, lifted a ball over Corey Mcduffie, hitting the bar. In the 53rd minute Hippopotami put themselves up 2 - 5 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. Scorer was Derrick Solomon. This third goal made a hat trick for Derrick Solomon. The game had been on for 73 minutes when Thomas Rosenthal broke through to the right, upping the score to the home crowd´s dismay. Hippopotami´s were up 2 - 6. Hippopotami, bringing the final ball possession rate to 80 percent, dominated the battle.

The most dominating Mulisha player was without a doubt Corey Mcduffie. Tony Tharp was a disappointment, however. Hippopotami´s best player was Edwin Phelan. Julius Acker on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 2 - 6.

Stadium

At their stadium. Miserable turnout.

Team Ratings

Metal Mulisha
Midfield: disastrous
Right Side Defence: passable
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: passable
Right Side Attack: weak
Central Attack: weak
Left Side Attack: poor

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: weak
Central Defence: weak
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: excellent
Central Attack: solid
Left Side Attack: passable

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli *~
DW Klaas Slingerland **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Thomas Rosenthal *~
WI Mick Starks (off) **
MI Julius Acker *~
MI Stephen Connors **
MI Carlos Alberto Benito (off) **~
WI Alfredo Crespo **
FO Derrick Solomon **
FO Edwin Phelan **~

Total player experience: wretched

Game Summary
Started off a bit rough, but with our superior talent, we pulled away. Solomon got our first hattrick. I wanted to sell him, as he should be, by all statistical indications, our 3rd string guy but he has played really well since I got him off the transfer wire back when I got my team. He has 7 goals in the time he's been with the team. Unfortunately he's 29 so he will just be warming the seat long enough for Chang to train.

Future Games
Ok, my easy run of 5 games is over. Next week: home against Atlanta and then an away against the Darksiders. I guess I overestimated how good Atlanta was as he got upset this week and I already thought we had the upper hand next week with the game in our house. I'll worry about the Darksiders next week. I have been playing Starks and Benito offensive but I think I'll change that up to normal next week and then switch their sides for the week after that so the Darksiders don't know what to expect. BTW, a 3 goal win next week gets us to 3rd. Still, I don't think there is any way we can win our league this year short of a complete collapse by the Darksiders and Dragons. There are 5 games left and 3 are against the top 5. Unfortunately only 2 of those are at home and they aren't the games against the Darksiders and Dragons.

 

N  Team                 P Goals  Pts 
1. The Darksiders       9 42 - 4  24 
2. CC's Dragons         9 43 - 11 24 
3. Atlanta United       9 24 - 17 18 
4. Houston Hippopotami  9 19 - 17 15 
5. The Flying Midgets   9 14 - 17 12 
6. backflips            9  9 - 32 6 
7. Tea Stealers         9  6 - 32 4 
8. Metal Mulisha        9  6 - 33 4 

Economy
I wanted to sell Paz and set him up with a pricetag of $50K, which I wasn't sure he would go for. Thankfully, a team from Argentina and one from Denmark got in a bidding war for the 27yo solid playmaker and he went for $72K despite his value of only $47K. Provided I make no more purchases this week, the home game next week will put us very close to even. Unfortunately as I said, 3 of the last 5 games are on the road and I would like to snag another passable backup middie to train so I have 3 starters and 3 backups.

Cash funds: -82 955 US$ (-43 573) US$
Sponsors: delirious
Supporter Club: 629 members
Supporters: high on life

Team Spirit: calm
Confidence: strong

Other Notes
I'm going to raise my training percentage to 92% as a test. If I start seeing more injuries, I'll just knock it back down to 90% but this is three weeks of training and only one bump to show for it. I guess I'm just impatient.

Unfortunately, after this past game, but 4-5-1 is back down to inadequite so I'll be quite confused again during my friendly.

Lastly, I played it cool in this last game so will there be a huge effect if I go "Match of the Season" in 2 games? I think I'm going to have to go norm-MotS-norm-PIC-MotS the last 5 games of the season. Is this going to kill my team?

Until next time, Hungry Hungry Hippos.

SI

[vex]

Going MOTS lowers your team spirit 2 levels.

Going PIC, however, only raises your team spirit 1 level.

So your team spirit isn't going to be too pretty if you go MOTS in 2 games.

JMO, but I say don't MOTS your game with Atlanta, because if you don't beat them, then you're not going to be able to beat the Dragons and the Darksiders and you can't MOTS ever match.

So see where your team stacks up next game and then see if going MOTS is logical against the Darksiders. JMO though, probably better wait for Ardent or someone though to tell you that I'm wroong

[sterlingice]

Well, apparently Atlanta United has played the same formation all three games. So time to put some of that strategy 101 to work. Critique, please.

  
G
O				X
L			     Raduli
	
D
E               X		X		X
F          Slingerland         Koch           Hebert
	
M		X		X		X
I	     Benito (OFF)    Acker (XTRA)    Connors
D	X		      			       X
      Starks (OFF)	      			     Crespo (DEF)
F    
O		X				X
R	     Solomon                         Phelan
                
F
O		X				X
R	     NORMAL                          NORMAL

M	X						X
I     NORMAL					    OFFENSIVE
D		X	      	X		X       
      	    DEFENSIVE	      EXTRA	      NORMAL
D
E               	X        	X		X
F      	      	      CENTER          CENTER          WING
                                                              
G
O				X
L			      GOALIE
  

Basically, I put Crespo at defensive to counter their offensive wing. Typically I played Benito and Starks offensive and with Starks at the left as above but Benito at right center middie. But I moved Benito over to the left with Starks so they can take full advantage of the hole on the left side. If he decides to switch things up, I could be in some serious trouble, but I do have superior talent so hopefully that will win out.

So your team spirit isn't going to be too pretty if you go MOTS in 2 games.

JMO, but I say don't MOTS your game with Atlanta, because if you don't beat them, then you're not going to be able to beat the Dragons and the Darksiders and you can't MOTS ever match.

So see where your team stacks up next game and then see if going MOTS is logical against the Darksiders. JMO though, probably better wait for Ardent or someone though to tell you that I'm wroong

Well, I was planning on going normal for Atlanta then MotS for Darksiders, normal for an easy game, PIC for an even easier game then MotS for the last game of the year versus CC.

EDIT: Also, as much as I would love to continue training playmaking, stamina is a real issue with my team (my 5 starting middies range from inadequite to poor) so I will be training it this week and possibly the next (or back to playmaking) in an attempt to ramp up my team's midfield performance in the next couple of games. Also, I have hired two more assistants which puts our total at 5.

SI

[NevStar]

From what I've read on the hattrick forums, do NOT train stamina for more than a week at a time. The hit to form is just too much to manage.

Also, regarding your formation, I'd suggest playing Crespo normal/offensive & playing Hebert defensively. Since Hebert's better defensively & Crespo has decent winger/passing ratings, this would give you more bang for the buck.

You could also consider playing Slingerland offensively, because hey, it worked for me. Good luck!

[Poli]

I'd be iffy about playing MOTS as we near the end of the season. The tricky part is that spirit gets reset at the end of the year. So, MOTS in the last week, possibly two wouldn't hurt you. However, you have to look at it from a couple of different angles.

Will MOTsing early hurt your spirit enough to effect your team? I have MOTsed early in my first season, and my spirit dropped...but to be honest, other than the game saying the spirit dropped, I saw no noticeable change. We went ahead and won our next game. However, that wasn't with five games left.

My suggestion? I'd play normal. I've talked with Horned about these type of situations before. If you can't win playing normal, maybe it wouldn't hurt to kick the ball around some more in D5. It is a long shot that you would finish first this season...and that's without number crunching. I definitely see you finishing third this season. I'd focus on putting the best team out there, without concern for the bonus of MOTS. Improve your team to the point where a team can't beat you even if they MOTS, and you're golden.

Hope I've helped.

[sterlingice]

New Hippopotamus
I was just playing on the transfer wire inbetween studying and I ran across this little gem as a trainee. I threw out a token 1K bid and lo and behold, he's going to be starting tomorrow at middie. Since he's a middie, he has been assigned 18 since it's the only midfielder number I have (it was Paz's until he was transferred). Unless a really cheap passable/passable wingback, a solid young scorer, or solid goalie drops into my lap (yeah, right), the only trainees I'm looking for are cheap wingers to replace 26yo Storm Jordan and 27yo Vernon Talbert. Anyways, back to Jeremy, he's only 20 and has 4 inadequates. If I can train him up quite a couple of levels in playmaking and stamina as I have been lately- he definately has a spot on the team with that inadequate defense and scoring.

Jeremy Rumbold (5670922) #18
20 years, poor form, healthy
A sympathetic guy who is calm and honest.
Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.
Nationality: Oceania
Assessed value: 17 000 US$
Wage: 756 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: inadequate
Passing: poor
Winger: wretched
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: inadequate
Set Pieces: inadequate

EDIT:
New Hippopotami
Looks like I've added more ethnicity to my team. Rumbold was from Oceania while our other new transfer wire bargain is Patrik Jonsson from Sverige, or Sweeden for those of you who don't speak hattrick or international. That sounded like a Dubya sentence if ever there was one. Anyways, I have a couple of other bids floating out there that I didn't figure would take, but I just got an amazing 18yo wingback trainee for $7K. He is inadequate 4 of the 5 stats you could hope for from a wingback: defense, winger, passing, and stamina. Patrick will be sporting the number 5 and playing wingback in tomorrow's game.

Patrik Jonsson (8193638) #5
18 years, passable form, healthy
A popular guy who is temperamental and dishonest.
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities.
Nationality: Sverige
Assessed value: 45 000 US$
Wage: 864 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: poor
Passing: inadequate
Winger: inadequate
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: wretched

Closing Notes
Somehow I doubt my other token bid of $23K for the passable scoring, solid winger, inadequate defender will go through. But even without the services of one Rickard Blomtorp for Sverige, I have made two great, cheap pickups tonight who will be great trainees. The best part is that I didn't break the bank to get them and they will immediately step in as second team trainees. Beware (or don't), anyone who is in the FOFC Consolation Cup because these guys will be coming at you. Then again, it should make it that much easier since I'm not playing my starters. Still, training guys like this will help my team a lot in the long run.

SI

[sterlingice]

Preview
We have been beaten quite soundly in our last couple of friendlies, riding a 3 game losing streak and 16-1 goal margin. Fortunately we have a couple of new subs in here but they are still inadequates and need some training. I got challenged out of the blue by someone named Stockbridge Panthers FC and we will go to Michigan.

Game Summary
Date: 2/13/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 5006918
Arena: Stockbridge Panthers FC Arena
Crowd: 761


Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 761 to Stockbridge Panthers FC Arena. Stockbridge had chosen a strategic 3-4-3 formation. Lineup: Walton - Bajo Fernández, Jackson, Coleman - Tapia, Winters, Enriquez, Livingston - Eddy, Cannon, Stringer.

Hippopotami had chosen a strategic 4-5-1 formation. Lineup: Almeida Lopes - Hebert, Koch, Rosenthal, Jonsson - Starks, Rumbold, Paige, Friedländer, Balbuena - Chang.

Hippopotami´s Defoe Chang gave the visitors a 0 - 1 lead in the 2nd minute with a superb strike from the right. The referee showed Stockbridges Edwin Livingston the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. Hippopotami appeared unsure on how to play. Hugh Hebert was, after 25 minutes, almost able to extend the visitors lead with a well placed diving header but home side keeper Archie Walton saved. Hippopotami appeared unsure on how to play. Hippopotami came close to extending their lead as Jeremy Rumbold delivered a long range shot from the right but the angle was to sharp, and the shot hit the side of the goal. In the games 36:th minute Hippopotami´s Hugh Hebert fell dramatically just outside the penalty area. However, the referee booked Hugh Hebert for taking a dive. Stockbridge´s Gabriel Enriquez made an attempt at equalising in the 41st minute, coming in from the right, but the ball hit the post, the defense clearing the rebound. Halftime score was 0 - 1. Stockbridge held the ball, with a clear 52 percent possession rate.

The Hippopotami players spent the half-time break getting a rerun of the teams tactical organization. After 47 minutes, Edwin Livingston managed to intercept a pass intended for the opposing keeper and flip it in, making the score 1 - 1. Hippopotami appeared unsure on how to play. The referee showed Stockbridges Esteban Bajo Fernández the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. In the games 55:th minute Patrik Jonsson almost gave the visitors the lead, as he clipped a spectacular scissors shot just past the bar. The referee showed Stockbridges Herman Coleman the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. In the 80:th minute cheers broke out as Rex Stringer found his way through the guests central defense line, clipping the 2 - 1 goal in for Stockbridge. Hippopotami had obvious problems in finding their positions. A speedy charge from the left side of the field put Stockbridge lead up with 3 - 1. Gregory Jackson finished that one off competently, firing from an acute angle. When Herman Coleman made yet another studs first tackle, in the games 88th minute, the referee was obliged to book the Stockbridge player for the second time, sending him off the pitch. Possession of the ball saw an equal split between the teams during the fortyfive minutes. Stockbridge´s best player was Rex Stringer. Bruno Winters on the other hand, had a terrible day. Most important Hippopotami player was Hugh Hebert. Kyle Paige was a disappointment, however. The match ends 3 - 1.

Stadium

At their place. 761 showed up and we made nearly 2K.

Team Ratings

Stockbridge Panthers FC
Midfield: disastrous
Right Side Defence: excellent
Central Defence: solid
Left Side Defence: passable
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: solid
Left Side Attack: inadequate

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: inadequate
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: weak
Central Attack: poor
Left Side Attack: poor

Player Ratings
GK Augusto Almeida Lopes *
DW Hugh Hebert **
DM Thomas Rosenthal **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Patrik Jonsson **
WI Mick Starks **
MI Philip Friedländer *
MI Jeremy Rumbold *
MI Kyle Paige ~
WI José Alberto Balbuena *~
FO Dafoe Chang *~

Total player experience: wretched

Game Summary
This is another game which goes to show that midfield is very overrated in hattrick. They only held a 51-49 possession advantage despite beating me in every other facet of the game. Our completely trainee only managed 2.5 stars but our wretched beat their disasterous. Lopes is gone as soon as I have 20K to get a backup inad goalie. At least the defense all got ** unfortunately 3 are starters but newly acquired Patrik Jonsson also showed up for the game.

A Look Ahead
Next week, we will be traveling to Aviators Arena in Ohio to play the Aviators in the FOFC Consolation Cup. I fear we will be making a first round exit since they probably would beat us even with all my starters. As it is, they will probably pound my team sprinkled with subs.

Our fixture this week is a doozie. If we win by 3, we will take over 3rd in the league, which is probably where we would finish. After that, 2 of our last 4 games are against the top two who are far and away the class of our division sandwiching games against pushovers. A strong finish gets us some good cash and a nice spot for next year when we can hope to win the league. Lots of bookkeeping coming up in the next post.

SI

[sterlingice]

BOOKKEEPING EXTRAVAGANZA
Yes, that's bookkeeping with three sets of double letters. This was pointed out in an Encyclopedia Brown book quite a while ago, if anyone remembers those. As I said, this would be quite a large update. Anyways, without further adieu

Supporters
I have now filled up my five supporter spots. They are all in the USA, FYI.

ausonny's Bees in V.41 - I have played the Bees twice. Neither time was pretty as we have lost by a combined 15-2 score. We'll beat that team one day.

NevStar's Morrisville Morrisvillians in V.93 - Our second match-based supporter. We only lost to them 4-0. Hopefully our B-Squad will keep getting better.

ardent's North County Raiders in IV.43 - Lastly, way back when we were starting out, I beat ardent's Raiders (b-team) back when I was playing starters for friendlies because I didn't know any better. Despite not being a reciprocal supporter, he gets our support for naming our fan club the "Hungry Hungry Hippos".

dataking's Screamin' Seamen in IV.49 - He's on the list for numerous reasons listed in some post a while ago.

vexroid's NE Oklahoma Sidekicks in V.111 - We added the Sidekicks today after he pledged support for us. Hopefully, in the next few weeks after the FOFC Consolation Cup is over for me and before the FOFC Cup starts back up for him, he can administer a beating, thus elevating this to onfield rivalry status like the Bees and Morrisvillians.

FOFC Consolation Cup
Speaking of the Consolation Cup, our match for next week has been booked at the Aviators home field. The Aviators play in IV but his second squad is somewhat worse than our starters. This will probably be another painful beating, tho. At least I have some trainees to make the beatings worthwhile instead of having no purpose.

Financial Planning
Here is a possible 2-Week budget for next season. If numbers remain the same, then there will only be one, if they change from week to week, that will be shown by 2 numbers

This week

Revenue
Crowd: 2000 (82000)
Sponsors: 35000
Financial: 0
Temporary: 0
Two Week Revenue: 154000

Expenses
Arena: 10300
Wages: 24000
Interest: 0
Temporary: 2000
Staff: 27000
Youth squad: 20000
Two Week Expenses: 166600

Two Week Gross: -12600

The sponsorship numbers are a little above what I get now but so are the wages. Everything else is more or less set in stone (the temp cost is for youth pulls). I may have to pare back the staff some. Although our sponsorship should increase as we keep getting supporters (and possibly our stadium revenue) while our wages have a lot of room to grow. Unfortunately, what this means is that I don't have much cash sitting around for transfers so I'll have to snag my trainees and rely on homegrown training to get new players. Then again, I could get rid of 4 staff members and it would be even. I wish I had a little more cash- I'd love to do a few international friendlies for the added training.

Anyways, a current FYI:
Value: 1409000
Wages: 19040

Staff Update
Speaking of staff, as of this past week, we bulked up our assistant coaching staff considerably since we are getting closer to a full compliment of trainees. I plan on keeping these numbers stable for quite a while, except maybe to add a doctor or two should I need it.

Goaltending Coaches: 2
Assistant Coaches: 8
Sport Psychologists: 1
Spokepersons: 5
Economists: 0
Physiotherapists: 1
Doctors: 1

Youth Squad Update

Youth Squad: inadequate
Investment in the Youth squad: 20000 US$ / week

Unfortunately, we have yet to pull anyone worth more than $5K but we just moved up to inadequate this week so hopefully we can start pulling some trainees or someone to sell. Hell, as nice as selling a pull would be, getting a trainee would be even better.

Training Update

Training Level: 95%
Training Type: Playmaking
Coach: Ricky Braden
Team Spirit: calm
Confidence: strong

Formation experience
4-3-3: wretched
4-5-1: excellent
3-5-2: solid
5-3-2: wretched
3-4-3: poor
5-4-1: wretched

Now, with a full compliment of coaches, our training should speed up some. Also, I raised the training level to 95% but if more injuries crop up, I'll roll back to 90-92%. Our main focus will be playmaking and that will be what we train this week and next leading up to our two big games. I had wanted to train some stamina but I can't afford the form drop until we get to the creampuffs in our schedule.

Oh, I should mention that has changed as well. One of our creampuffs, the backflips, got scooped up: "The club changed owner asjay25 took control and renamed it Vermont Catamounts". I sent him a welcome message yesterday but no response yet.

Also, since I'm only playing a 3-5-2 every other game, it's now bouncing back and forth between solid and excellent. This could get annoying. I thought they were changing it so you could do more forms, not less.

Lastly, team spirit is a concern. We are constantly at calm. Which is just not that good. My coach is solid so I'm not canning him: he goes all out but is only a weak leader and more towards this case, he's controversial. Also, my two team leaders with passable leadership, Starks and Connors are nasty and controversial so alternating between them doesn't help my team spirit at all...

Which is why I will now be shopping for a clown ever since I found out about them. Solid/popular at $100K is way too steep, but I could desperately use a solid/sympathetic guy at $10K. For those who are unaware- the player on your team with the highest leadership (or multiple, as is my case with Starks and Connors) affect your team spirit. You want people who are sympathetic or popular to raise your team spirit as those who are nasty and controversial will lower it. I have a double whammy currently but they will no longer be the team leaders if I get a guy with solid leadership. This is not to be confused with the Team Captain during games- that is completely different. FYI, to technically be considered a clown, the player should have crappy skills and sit the bench because the team leader can affect differences from the bench without even playing.

Wish List
Once I get some nonexistant money, I have a short list of needs and a very long list of wants. Topping the needs list is a young, inad backup goalie for under $20K. Also, as I stated above, I'm looking for a clown to help with my team spirit problems. Problem is that so is everyone. For instance, earlier today, I scoured all of the transfer wires for guys under $30K and ran across a solid/popular guy with no bid on him at 15 mins left. I put down a $1K bid but before I dropped out, it was at $70K less than 10 mins later.

Trainees Want List (all young)- After I get these five, I'll have a complete second squad so they are at the top of my want list.
1. Inadequate goalie
2. Pair of soild winger trainees
2. Passable defender
4. Quality inner middie ($$$)

Secondary List - These are more changes I'd like to make for the future but are less urgent since I'm not wasting training time if I don't do them.
1. Fire Foster (recent crappy youth pull)
2. Sell/Fire Talbert, Jordan, Lopes, Balbuena
3. Sell Rosenthal for a younger, passable defender
4. Sell Paige for a better inner middie once he reaches solid playmaking

International Flavor
I know it's a bit more expensive to pay the extra 20% wages but I kindof enjoy the extra flavor and international players tend to be cheaper on the transfer wire.

USA:12, coach
Oceania: 2
Argentina: 2
Österreich: 1
Portugal: 1
England: 1
Nederland: 1
Polska: 1
Deutschland: 1
Sverige: 1

Where are they Now
Typically I don't do daytrading except for a small stint of 4 players which netted me a pretty decent profit. Other than that, players who I sell have just outlived their usefulness on my team. This will be on a new Monday/Tuesday feature.

Current News
Oh, bloody hell. Too many windows open and I accidentally paid $25K for a player who is on the transfer wire at the moment or will, more likely, be fired. This sucks- lets this be a lesson, kiddos- don't accidentally hit the bid button in the wrong window =(

Anyways, I did get a new "clown" but he's temporary and cost 1K. He is only solid/pleasant but that's much better than nasty or controversial: welcome our new #24 Ildefonso Besteiro Saiz (5688467) from Argentina.

For Sale:
Talbert
Jordan
Rosca (the accidental purchase)
Balbuena
Foster

I figure if I get just $1K that makes it worth it to sell someone instead of fire them and there are odds that someone overpays stupidly so it's worth it to try. Talbert will be up Feb 15th and the others will be up on Feb 17th.

What's Left
Training updates tomorrow and a huge game this week! It could get us 3rd in division. Then the FOFC Consolation Cup game on Wednesday. That's all for now.

SI

[sterlingice]

TRAINING UPDATE
Well, there's good news and bad news.

First, the bad news: starting goalie Dawid Raduli has plummeted in form. I was a little concerned but now it's reached crisis stage. His value has gone from $140K to $104K but even worse is that his form has gone down 3 of the last 4 weeks and he's down to wretched. The only thing I can do is hope he plays his way out of it.

Now, for the good news- we got a bump this week for the first time in three weeks. Alfredo Crespo, starting winger, has been bumped up to inadequate in playmaking. It's not a great bump but it's a bump and it's even more impressive since he's 27yo. Onto the stats.

Form
Starters: (+1) (-2)
Entire Team: (+4) (-6)

Value
Starters: (+8) (-2)
Entire Team: (+12) (-6)

Team Stats
Value: 1460000 (+51000)
Wages: 20260 (+1020)

TRANSFER WIRE
In case you missed the news, five guys have been sent to the transfer list as part of spring cleaning. Check the Hattrick classifieds on the general discussion board or here to see if you're interested.

José Alberto Balbuena
12 000 US$, 19 years, weak form
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities
Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: disastrous
Winger: passable Defending: wretched
Scoring: poor Set Pieces: weak

Jack Foster
5 000 US$, 17 years, inadequate form
Has disastrous experience and weak leadership abilities [Head]
Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: weak
Winger: poor Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak Set Pieces: wretched

Matei Rosca
27 000 US$, 24 years, poor form
Has wretched experience and weak leadership abilities
Stamina: passable Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched
Winger: inadequate Defending: poor
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: wretched

Storm Jordan
38 000 US$, 26 years, inadequate form
Has poor experience and weak leadership abilities
Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched Passing: inadequate
Winger: passable Defending: wretched
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: wretched

Vernon Talbert
32 000 US$, 27 years, passable form
Has poor experience and poor leadership abilities
Stamina: weak Keeper: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: weak
Winger: inadequate Defending: poor
Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: weak

SI

[vex]

Oh, just put your Keeper up for sale, let him go somewhere else, and then his form will go up. Worked like a charm for me.

[sterlingice]

Oh, just put your Keeper up for sale, let him go somewhere else, and then his form will go up. Worked like a charm for me.

Saw that and offer my condolences. Then again, he's definately my best option- a passable in any form is better than my weak backup goalie.

SI

[vex]

That's exactly the situation I was in. I sold the weak Keeper first, then the Passable one who was in bad form. So at this moment, I have no Keeper. I'm puting everything on this one Keeper I've bid for.

[Poli]

Glad to see I'm not the only one trying this suicide tactic of selling their keepers.

[sterlingice]

New Hippopotamus
Just got another cheap recruit. Our newest comes from België for the whopping price for $1K and will serve as a wingback trainee. What, of course, piqued my interest is the inad/inad at defense/winger and the weak passing isn't too bad. I need to work on his stamina among other things but we have stamina training scheduled for the week after next. He will sports the number 9.

Gérard Longis (8249084)
19 years, passable form, healthy
A controversial person who is balanced and honest.
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities.
Nationality: België
Assessed value: 12 000 US$
Wage: 672 US$/week including 20% Bonus
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: poor
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: wretched
Passing: weak
Winger: inadequate
Defending: inadequate
Scoring: wretched
Set Pieces: poor

SI

[sterlingice]

Youth Pull
As I so often do, I will use a Simpsons quote to best describe this one. Heck, maybe I should have the "Simpsons Youth Pull Quote of the Week"

"Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors." -Kent Brockman

Henry Heck (8315266)
17 years, passable form, healthy
A pleasant guy who is fiery and honest.
Has disastrous experience and wretched leadership abilities.
Speciality: Powerful
Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 2 000 US$
Wage: 500 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0
Stamina: weak Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: poor Passing: wretched
Winger: wretched Defending: poor
Scoring: wretched Set Pieces: wretched

Darn, and I like his name, too. Too bad he plays worse than my coach.

Weekly Finance

This week

Revenue
Crowd: 0
Sponsors: 35 400
Financial: 0
Temporary: 0
Total revenue: 35 400

Expenses
Arena: 10 286
Wages: 23 260
Interest: 4 313
Temporary: 2 000
Staff: 27 000
Youth squad: 20 000
Total expenses: 86 859

Total: -51 459

Last week

Revenue
Crowd: 1 974
Sponsors: 33 300
Financial: 0
Temporary: 71 580
Total revenue: 106 854

Expenses
Arena: 10 286
Wages: 20 224
Interest: 4 148
Temporary: 42 000
Staff: 13 500
Youth squad: 20 000
Total expenses: 86 859

Total: -3 304

Unfortunately, our accidental 25K purchase last week set us back in the hole. Right now, goal is to be at -0- by the beginning of next year. If we make third, that's an option we should have without having to sell anyone else. If we finish below 4th, we will have to make a personnel move. I'm hoping I can get a couple of our youth guys trained in the next couple of weeks so I can sell some of our starters and/or youth squad guys.

Also, one of my players did not garner any bids, so Vernon Talbert has now been issued a pink slip. We wish him well but he really has no place on a team with a youth movement like ours. Harsh business when a player making only $680 gets fired, but we are in belt tightening mode to try and get back in the black.

Someone want to verify this theory? From what I understand, in the two weeks between seasons, cash is scarce and thus players should be somewhat cheaper than normal? If that's the case, I may look into some "strategic" debt because at the beginning of next year, teams will have more cash to throw around and will be more desparate to compete.

SI

[sterlingice]

Preview
This game will more or less define our season. Even if we win, we have to go 3-1 the rest of the way to secure 3rd place, most likely. If we lose, we're pretty much relegated to 4th. They had used the same odd formation every game leading up to this so we're hoping to take advatage of this and run them over. They had some weird asymetrical lineup with lots of odd offensive and defensive switches so check out the previous message in this thread if you're interested.

Game Summary
Date: 2/17/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 4591306
Arena: The Hippodrome
Crowd: 13444

Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 13444 to The Hippodrome. Hippopotami started off with a 3-5-2 lineup. They fielded: Raduli - Slingerland, Koch, Hebert - Starks, Benito, Acker, Connors, Crespo - Solomon, Phelan.

Atlanta had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. The following players had been chosen: Daugherty - Craig, Ramsey, Anderson - Foote, Hummel, Speer, Chaney, Morales - Whiting, Moore.

Julius Acker received some harsh words from his coach after he acted foolishly, probably out of lack of experience, in the 9:th minute and almost caused an opponent to score. In the 9:th minute Derrick Solomon almost put the home team one ahead on a cross pass coming in from the right, but the shot went wide. Some beautiful plays on the left side of the field resulted in a 13th minute goal by Julius Acker for Hippopotami, putting them ahead 1 - 0. After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, Hippopotami´s Alfredo Crespo got himself booked. Atlantas Dennis Ramsey got himself booked after a foul. The teams went for a half-time break at 1 - 0. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Hippopotami, with an impressive 64 percent possession of the ball.

Things were going to get worse for the visitors. Klaas Slingerland squirmed himself through the central defense line in the 60:th minute, asserting the lead to 2 - 0. A bit later, a magnificent combination in the middle resulted in Hippopotami´s Alfredo Crespo putting the lead up to 3 - 0. Mick Starks of Hippopotami received a yellow card in the 72nd minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. A speedy charge from the left side of the field put Hippopotami lead up with 4 - 0. Edwin Phelan finished that one off competently, firing from an acute angle. Hippopotami put themselves up 5 - 0 when Edwin Phelan broke through on the right, leaving the entire defensive box behind him. After this Hippopotami lowered the tempo in order to concentrate on their defensive efforts. After 86 minutes Hippopotami´s Julius Acker contracted a slight foot injury, but could finish the game. In the 87:th minute of the match the visitors central line of defence had to look on as Carlos Alberto Benito dashed through, knocking home 6 - 0 for Hippopotami.

Stadium

Terraces: 7981 (9702)
Basic seats: 3850 (3850)
Seats under roof: 1295 (1740)
VIP seats: 318 (400)
Total: 13444 (15692)

Kindof a low turnout for a team who had won 5 in a row and in the battle for 3rd place against a quality team. Not only that but I keep gaining support and weather was pretty good. Oh well.

Team Ratings

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: poor
Right Side Defence: weak
Central Defence: inadequate
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: excellent
Central Attack: solid
Left Side Attack: inadequate

Atlanta United
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: inadequate
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: weak
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: passable
Left Side Attack: passable

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli *
DW Klaas Slingerland **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Hugh Hebert **
WI Mick Starks (off) **~
MI Stephen Connors **
MI Julius Acker *~
MI Carlos Alberto Benito (off) **~
WI Alfredo Crespo **
FO Derrick Solomon **
FO Edwin Phelan **~

Total Stars: 22
Team Attitude: Normal
Total player experience: wretched

Raduli's slump is reaching critical. Benito's stat improvement last week gets us our third consistent **~ in our lineup. Woo!

Game Summary
Another slow start but we poured it on in the end. We only needed to win by 3 to take 3rd and we just annihilated Atlanta. We had a great all around game and Raduli's slump didn't cost us. He desperately needs to improve by next week because the Darksiders will not be as forgiving.

Future Games
Six in a row and if we can win number seven, that makes us a prohibitive favorite to win next year because the Dragons will likely move up and we will have beaten the Darksiders at their place. I'm toying with the idea of MotS next game but I don't think our team spirit can take that. As for the Darksiders, the last two games they have gotten 22 and 23.5 stars. He likes to morph his lineup so I think it's time to switch things up and put Starks and Benito on the opposite side he thinks they will be on. This is the fun little X's and O's matchup I've been waiting for.

Aside from our huge game with the Darksiders, we have our first, and hopefully not last, FOFC Consolation match against the Aviators. I still haven't decided if I'm going to go with any starters or if he gets to annihilate my B-squad like my last 4 weeks of friendlies.

 

N  Team                 P Goals  Pts 
1. The Darksiders      10 45 - 4  27 
2. CC's Dragons        10 45 - 11 27 
3. Houston Hippopotami 10 25 - 17 18 
4. Atlanta United      10 24 - 23 18 
5. The Flying Midgets  10 14 - 19 12 
6. Vermont Catamounts  10 11 - 33  9 
7. Metal Mulisha       10  7 - 35  4 
8. Tea Stealers        10  6 - 35  4 

Economy
Sorry, Hippopotami faithful, but we had to say goodbye to Storm Jordan. We just don't have enough spots on our team for players who aren't starters or trainees. I am now on the lookout for a young trainee by the name of Storm or Max or something cool. We picked up 71744 from the match and another 6380 from the sale of our three players. We're down to 21 players. The ideal is 11 starters, 11 second team, a clown, and a coach. Right now, we are lacking a pair of wingers and a pair of middle defender trainees (FYI: we have a forward, three middies, two wingbacks, and a goalie). After our game and selling income, we are at -63094. I have decided to sell our last non-veteran starter: Thomas Rosenthal. He's 28 but a passable scorer and defender so I should hope he can fetch some cash on the open market, starting at $25000. Lastly, I just snagged a new clown/backup goalie named Silviu Radu and issued him the number 2, the backup goalie's number. He's 20 and weak skill but he has solid leadership and is sympathetic so both our backup goalie Lopes and our old clown will be out on their arse.

Other Notes
Now we have both 4-5-1 and 3-5-2 up to solid. Hopefully alternating between those two for our frienly and fixture will keep it there. Confidence is up to wonderful. I've heard if it's here for too long, it will hurt your team immensely as they will be overconfident. I'm not liking our chances next week so that might change our confidence. If we do win next week, I'm up for a pair of PIC games after that against creampuffs and then a game against the Dragons. Stay tuned for our FOFC Consolation Match on Wednesday.

SI

[DataKing]

Originally posted by sterlingice
Someone want to verify this theory? From what I understand, in the two weeks between seasons, cash is scarce and thus players should be somewhat cheaper than normal? If that's the case, I may look into some "strategic" debt because at the beginning of next year, teams will have more cash to throw around and will be more desparate to compete.

SI

There tends to be a little less money floating around during the off-season because, aside from qualification matches, there are no large crowd incomes. However, player prices are not necessarily that much lower than normal. This is because of a couple of things:

1. Teams that finished in the top four spots in their series receive prize money.
2. Teams also receive money from annual supporter dues. Supporters pay $30 per season, not just $30 the first time they sign up.

Players may be a little less expensive during the off-season, but not by much.

[sterlingice]

PLAYER NEWS
Hopefully on either Monday or Tuesday I will give everyone a more intimate glimpse into the world of the Hippopotami with two regular features. The first is ripped straight from NevStar's Morrisville dynasty and we hope this shameless plug will allow us to continue without the lawyers getting involved. Basically, we will check in on a couple of former Hippopotami and see how they are doing now. The other feature is a Player of the Week column where we get "inside the jock" with one of the players on the team and that will be appearing tomorrow, possibly. Our first feature will be one of the following: Coach Ricky Braden, Goalie Dawid Raduli, or Team Captain Mick Starks.

Where are they now?
What follows is a list of former Hippopotami who were sold on the transfer wire. Each week, we will look at a few of the players and where they are now. This week, we will look at the 4 players from the initial purge. Next week, we will look into my brief forray into daytrading, then who knows.

1/12/2003 Sold (Fired player) to Rednecks 1 000 US$ (0 US$)
1/12/2003 Sold Hayden Hanks to C.A. Daedra (B.Bca.) 20 000 US$ (82 000 US$)
1/16/2003 Sold Rodney Walters to Brookland Cayce 16 000 US$ (100 000 US$)
1/16/2003 Sold Alvin Yeager to Sporting Milwaukee 145 000 US$ (98 000 US$)

1/26/2003 Sold Alvarado Lanza to Metaguacha 12 000 US$ (21 000 US$)
1/26/2003 Sold Ben Magnusson to Gringos 12 000 US$ (17 000 US$)
1/26/2003 Sold Søren Andersen to Morrisville Morrisvillians 13 000 US$ (31 000 US$)
1/27/2003 Sold Tommy Lyhling to Hawkeye F.C. 50 000 US$ (54 000 US$)

2/9/2003 Sold Pedro Villavilla Paz to Los N° 1 72 000 US$ (47 000 US$)

2/17/2003 Sold Matei Rosca to Racing Mexico 2 000 US$ (30 000 US$)
2/17/2003 Sold Storm Jordan to Racing Mexico 4 000 US$ (35 000 US$)
2/17/2003 Sold José Alberto Balbuena to K-Wings 1 000 US$ (12 000 US$)

Oh, and FYI:
Total Purchases 381 000 US$
Total Sales 348 000 US$
Difference -33 000 US$
Average (bought) 18 143 US$
Average (sold) 29 000 US$
Average (bought + sold) -1 000 US$

Frankly, I don't remember who the first player was. I think it might have been defensive backup Rod Land. Whoever it was, he was sold for $1K and is no longer with the Rednecks.

Initially, I was looking for an inadequate goalie before I was set straight here. Hayden Hanks was a 20yo inadequate who I bought for $25K from the Pooks Grizzlies. However, after buying passable keeper and current starter Dawid Raduli, Hanks became expendable and I sold him for only $20K to division IV team C.A. Daedra (B.Bca.) in Español. Not long after, he was sold for only $13K to division V Polska team ziperiada. He is bruised at the moment but appears to be their starting goalie and averages *~ per game.

Along those same lines, we signed 26yo inadequate goalie Rodney Walters as our first transfer purchase at $22K. My, the foolish mistakes we make. Then again, my first day on the transfer wire, I almost bid $50K for an inad goalie and then my face would really have been red. Anyways, much like Hanks, after Raduli arrived, he became expendable and went for $16K to another division V team in the good ol' US of A named Brookland Cayce. He then sold for $17K to a team in Español div IV named suellen who sold him to another team in Español div V named Motril C.F. Now, this is where it gets weird. I'm guessing Motril C.F. trains goalies because his value went up $20K and he was sold to another Español team, div V Paketones for a whopping $90K where he is backing up *** goalie Stefan Olofsson- yet another part of this mystery I just don't get.

Lastly, was super sub Alvin Yeager who might as well have had the Hippodrome named after him. His $145K sale to div V USA team Sporting Milwaukee gave us enough capital to ultimately lead to stadium renovations. He currently gains *~ or ** as a starting middie for that team and he has scored one goal for them.

That's all for now but check out next week when daytrading was our flavor here and we made a quick buck on a couple of players. We will look in and see how they are doing.

SI

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Preview
Riding a 4 friendly losing streak, we were looking to turn our luck around in the FOFC Consolation Cup. The Aviators would be a tough match as they average about 23 stars a game and our starters rarely get that high. However, since it's a friendly, we'll be lucky to get 20. I mixed in a healthy number of trainees because we can't just slow or stop training because of the cup. I definately wanted Raduli in there so he can play out his slump. I'm essentially going with a 4-5-1 with my starting middle defenders and wingers but trainee middies, wingbacks, and forward, who is a damn fine player, anyways.

Game Summary
Date: 2/20/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 5023433
Arena: Aviators Arena
Crowd: 371

371 spectators arrived at Aviators Arena, where weather conditions were pretty good for football. Aviators had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. Lineup: Noguerol - Hanley, Mccurdy, Broussard - Baez, das Almas, Sweet, Akins, Ennis - Nelson, Schulte.

Hippopotami had chosen a strategic 4-5-1 formation. The following players had been chosen: Raduli - Longis, Koch, Hebert, Jonsson - Starks, Rumbold, Paige, Friedländer, Slingerland - Chang.

In the 13th minute the home side managed to get a 1 - 0 lead as Blaine Baez flipped the ball after a cross pass from the right. In the games 19:th minute the visitors levelled to 1 - 1 as Defoe Chang struck home on a bar rebound, following a shot from the right. Gérard Longis of Hippopotami received a yellow card in the 19:th minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Man, what a shot by Darwin Nelson! Firing from 35 yards he didn't give the enemy goalie a chance and it was 2 - 1. In the 21st minute Aviators put themselves up 3 - 1. The visitors defenders lost the ball to Alberto das Almas coming up from the left, who proceeded to cooly round the goaltender and knock the ball home. In the games 25:th minute Hippopotami´s Philip Friedländer fell dramatically just outside the penalty area. However, the referee booked Philip Friedländer for taking a dive. The visitors got a chance of pulling one back in the 26:th minute, due to a defensive blunder leaving Kyle Paige completely unmarked. His strike was pathetic though, easy prey for the home side´s keeper. Kyle Paige of Hippopotami received a yellow card in the 32nd minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. 3 - 1 was the half-time score. Aviators, bringing the final ball possession rate to 60 percent, dominated the battle.

After an industrious effort down the middle Darwin Nelson could have closed the game off in the 55:th minute, but his finishing shot hit the post. Clayton Ennis of Aviators was able to make an impressive rush past the sluggish Gérard Longis, which resulted in the 4 - 1 goal. The structure of the game started to change as Aviators decided to pull back and meet their opponents in the defensive zone. In the 85:th minute Defoe Chang, after an opportunist attack from the right, scored the reducer for Hippopotami making it 4 - 2. In the 86:th minute Aviators´s Joel Schulte tried to nail the coffin shut, but the shot rebounded off the bar to fall behind the net. In the to 87:th minute a very unfortunate collision in the home teams penalty area led to Aviators´s Donnie Broussard being carried off the pitch and replaced by Walter Shook. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Aviators, with an impressive 66 percent possession of the ball.

The most dominating Aviators player was without a doubt Darwin Nelson. Johnny Sweet on the other hand, had a terrible day. Hippopotami´s best player was Mick Starks. Kyle Paige on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 4 - 2.

Stadium

At their place. Really sparse crowd in the 300s that only netted us $983.

Team Ratings

Aviators
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: poor
Central Defence: weak
Left Side Defence: weak
Right Side Attack: inadequate
Central Attack: weak
Left Side Attack: weak

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: inadequate
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: passable
Central Attack: poor
Left Side Attack: weak

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli *
DW Gerard Longis **
DW Hugh Hebert **
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Patrik Jonsson **
WI Mick Starks **~
MI Philip Friedländer *
MI Jeremy Rumbold *
MI Kyle Paige ~
WI Klaas Slingerland **
FO Dafoe Chang *~

Total player experience: wretched

Game Summary
We got beaten pretty bad in possession but I'm not sure why, looking at the ratings. We must have gotten a low wretched at the highly overemphasized middie while he got a high wretched. Our defense beat him across the board, 2 of the 3 spots by 2 ranks. Our attacks were even (pass + poor + weak vs inad + weak + week). I just don't get it. Speaking of our defense, it was stellar, literally- all of the guys, trainees, even, getting **. Our rookie midfield killed us with **~ between the three.

Oh well, I didn't expect to win this game but it would have been nice. Now we have to turn around and get ready for our big game with the Darksiders.

SI

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TRAINING UPDATE
Again, a good news-bad news scenario and this is all about Raduli. He didn't lose any more form but his value continues to fall. He's now down to a low of 90. Again, this week, we trained playmaking at 95%. Next week, we will be going to stamina and dropping down to 92% to avoid some injury.

Also, Mick Starks is our first player to break 200K in value and weighs in this week at $216K.

Lastly, we had a bump, tho a really insignificant one. Trainee wingback Gérard Longis saw his playmaking go from wretched to poor. It's better than nothing, certainly.

Form
Starters: (+2) (-1)
Entire Team: (+4) (-5)

Value
Starters: (+6) (-3)
Entire Team: (+9) (-7)

Team Stats
Value: 1427000 (-33000)
Wages: 18480 (-2180)

Staff Change
To save a little cash, I'm cutting back on two staff members. First, I'm going to drop by 7th and 8th assistant coaches. I doubt they are helping that much. Also, I'm going to get rid of my sports shrink since our confidence is wonderful and I don't want us pushed to overconfidence.

Supporters
They're high on life to go along with our delirious sponsors. I've gotten another 14 twice this week and I'm up to 685 in the club so things are going well. Then again, I haven't lost since taking over this team and that may not continue this week with the top team in the league.

Sales
Well, I tried to sell off Lopes and Rosenthal but I had no takers at their prices. I'll set them out for $1K each tomorrow and take what I can get. Also, we picked up another $600 as Storm Jordan was sold again, this time from Racing Mexico to luv united in Deutschland. So why did I only get $4K and someone turned around and got $12K for him? It's just not right.

Fixture
Another big game this week before two easier games. This guy has a goal differential of 45-4 this year. He has 22 stars this past game as did we. I would feel a lot better about this game if it was our goalie getting **~ per game and his getting * but life doesn't always work out that way. Hopefully Raduli can come up clutch even in a slump.

Friendly
We're looking for a team to play in a friendly next week. Anyone interested, challenge me. For expenses sake, I'd like to stay in the US, tho- my place or yours.

SI

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Youth Pull
Despite his cool looking dreadlocks, Davis is another in the long line of garbage pulled out of our system. Oh well.

Davis Forman (8436047)
19 years, passable form, healthy

A sympathetic guy who is balanced and dishonest.
Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities.

Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 1 000 US$
Wage: 500 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0

Stamina: weak
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: disastrous
Passing: poor
Winger: wretched
Defending: wretched
Scoring: weak
Set Pieces: wretched

Economy
Thomas Rosenthal, Ildefonso Besteiro Saiz, and Augusto Almeida Lopes are all up for sale and two have bids already despite about 36 hours between now and their end. Our sponsors and supporters are both up to "high on life" at least until tomorrow. Supporters up to 685, FYI. Unfortunately 3 of our last 4 are on the road so we will probably be $150K in the hole to start next season. Hmm... I'm not sure how to fix that currently. I'm open to any ideas but I don't have anyone who I can sell without crippling my team. I'll just continue to train and hope I can get a sellable player or two.

Friendly
I set up a friendly against another Houston team, Woodlands Elite. If you're not from Houston, the Woodlands is a rich part of town filled with spoiled brats and people who refuse to pay metro taxes because they are outside the county. If we can win this one, it will be satisfying.

Wrapup
And remember, huge huge huge league game tomorrow against the 1st place team in our league. I want to see if we can actually win against high quality competition going all out.

SI

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Preview
After our huge fixture last week, we had a big game this week against the team that will probably no longer be in V next year. This should be a great barometer for next year. We want to win and if we can beat them, it's likely we will be a favorite for next year along with another power team, CC's Dragons, and the division IV team which drops.

Game Summary
Date: 2/24/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 4591308
Arena: Darkside Dome
Crowd: 28400

28400 spectators had come to Darkside Dome this cloudy day. Darksiders tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. The following players had been chosen: Hudson - Plesu, Williams, Blalock - Thomas, Kjellsson, Eubanks, Miller, Delaney - Soto, Strong.

Hippopotami tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. The following players had been chosen: Raduli - Hebert, Koch, Slingerland - Crespo, Benito, Acker, Connors, Starks - Solomon, Phelan.

Darksiders were very close to putting themselves one up in the 8:th minute as Sean Soto got through, but failing in concentration, he shot the ball wide. In the 16:th minute the home side managed to get a 1 - 0 lead as Nicusor Plesu flipped the ball after a cross pass from the right. Darksiders put themselves up 2 - 0 when Ralph Kjellsson broke through on the right, leaving the entire defensive box behind him. The structure of the game started to change as Darksiders decided to pull back and meet their opponents in the defensive zone. The referee showed Hippopotamis Hugh Hebert the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. A couple of quick and successful challenges, followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area after 28 minutes might have resulted in another goal for Darksiders. However, Dawid Raduli made a spectacular save. After 30 minutes Hippopotami´s Hugh Hebert contracted a slight foot injury, but could finish the game. Halftime score was 2 - 0. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Darksiders, with an impressive 66 percent possession of the ball.

Darksiders put their lead ahead another goal as Ralph Kjellsson struck home the 3 - 0 goal, after an attack from the left setting him up unmarked with the keeper. The game was close to savage at times, and Hippopotami`s Hugh Hebert received a second yellow card in the 64:th, his ticket out of the game. The referee showed Hippopotamis Julius Acker the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. Nicusor Plesu the unlucky victim, couldn´t continue the game. A speedy charge from the left side of the field put Darksiders lead up with 4 - 0. Sean Soto finished that one off competently, firing from an acute angle. Mick Starks of Hippopotami received a yellow card in the 86:th minute for unsportsmanlike behaviour. With 87 minutes played Ralph Kjellsson could have brought this one home for Darksiders, had his hooked ball gone in, but it went just a bit too high. Darksiders held the ball, with a clear 80 percent possession rate.

The most dominating Darksiders player was without a doubt Christopher Thomas. Harvey Strong on the other hand, had a terrible day. Most important Hippopotami player was Mick Starks. Dawid Raduli on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 4 - 0.

Stadium
Wow! He pulled in 28400 at his stadium. ON A CLOUDY DAY! This guy belongs in IV, easily! Good thing we have another week before our next home game because we'll need to help our sponsors, supporters, and team's shattered confidence. Actually our sponsors are still "high on life" but our supporters dropped to content and team confidence down from "wonderful" to "poor"- that's a 4 level drop for anyone counting at home.

Team Ratings

The Darksiders
Midfield: weak
Right Side Defence: inadequate
Central Defence: passable
Left Side Defence: passable
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: weak
Left Side Attack: passable


Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: weak
Central Defence: weak
Left Side Defence: weak
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: passable
Left Side Attack: formidable

The attack looked awesome but their defense was pretty good. However, like every game we have lost, it's all boiled down to the midfield. Then again, losing Hebert early in the 2nd half crushed our defense.

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli *
DW Hugh Hebert KICKED OUT
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Klaas Slingerland **
WI Alfredo Crespo **
MI Stephen Connors **
MI Julius Acker (wing) *~
MI Carlos Alberto Benito **
WI Mick Starks (off) **~
FO Derrick Solomon **
FO Edwin Phelan **~

Total Stars: 20
Team Attitude: Normal
Total player experience: wretched

Except for Raduli and Hebert, everyone was at the top of their game. Well, Acker may have to go but we have no way to replace him right now. He looks good on paper with solid playmaking, passable winger, and passable passing but never seems to play well. It's probably all about his bad stamina. Well, that should change as we are going to hit stamina at least two of the next four weeks. Benito should probably stay towards the offensive side of things from now on- he gets ** normal but **~ on offense.

Game Summary
Ow. Ow. Ow. Granted, we are starting to look like a 2nd half team (odd, considering our crappy stamina) and Hebert getting kicked squelched any longshot of a comeback. The drop of confidence seems a bit severe. The star count was 23 (him) to 20 (us) but that's a little misleading as Hebert typically pulls down 2 a game. We still weren't going to win down 1 star and on the road, but it looks like we just weren't meant to win today and I'm glad I didn't MotS it.

Future Games
Two easy games the next two weeks against two recent replacements who have yet to hit the transfer wire. But, we have a problem. This loss drops us back into 4th, 3 points behind Atlanta. This really hurts because, like us, they have 2 easy games against the bottom half and only 1 game against a hard team so unless we can beat CC's Dragons (who will be our main competition to moving up next year), we will probably finish 4th. The 0-4 hole the team was in when I took over just might prove too tough to overcome for 3rd. Atlanta took over for one of the better teams in the league (3rd at the time, I believe) so he just had too far of a head start. Don't worry- next year, he'll be sucking my tailpipe.

 

N  Team                 P Goals  Pts 
1. The Darksiders      11 49 - 4  30 
2. CC's Dragons        11 51 - 11 30 
3. Atlanta United      11 30 - 23 21 
4. Houston Hippopotami 11 25 - 21 18 
5. The Flying Midgets  11 15 - 20 13 
6. Vermont Catamounts  11 11 - 39 9 
7. Tea Stealers        11  7 - 36 5 
8. Metal Mulisha       11  7 - 41 4 

SI

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Where are they now?
Time for the second installment in "Where are they Now?" We sold three players between last time and now. They will be in the 4th groups of reviews which should be 2 weeks from now.

Last Week
1/12/2003 Sold (Fired player) to Rednecks 1 000 US$ (0 US$)
1/12/2003 Sold Hayden Hanks to C.A. Daedra (B.Bca.) 20 000 US$ (82 000 US$)
1/16/2003 Sold Rodney Walters to Brookland Cayce 16 000 US$ (100 000 US$)
1/16/2003 Sold Alvin Yeager to Sporting Milwaukee 145 000 US$ (98 000 US$)

This Week
1/26/2003 Sold Alvarado Lanza to Metaguacha 12 000 US$ (21 000 US$)
1/26/2003 Sold Ben Magnusson to Gringos 12 000 US$ (17 000 US$)
1/27/2003 Sold Tommy Lyhling to Hawkeye F.C. 50 000 US$ (54 000 US$)

For the Future
1/26/2003 Sold Søren Andersen to Morrisville Morrisvillians 13 000 US$ (31 000 US$)
2/9/2003 Sold Pedro Villavilla Paz to Los N° 1 72 000 US$ (47 000 US$)

2/17/2003 Sold Matei Rosca to Racing Mexico 2 000 US$ (30 000 US$)
2/17/2003 Sold José Alberto Balbuena to K-Wings 1 000 US$ (12 000 US$)
2/17/2003 Sold Storm Jordan to Racing Mexico 4 000 US$ (35 000 US$)

2/24/2003 Sold Ildefonso Besteiro Saiz to JOB Squad 1 000 US$ (0 US$)
2/24/2003 Sold Augusto Almeida Lopes to snomus cf 2 000 US$ (33 000 US$)
2/24/2003 Sold Thomas Rosenthal to BACARDI C.F 21 001 US$ (74 000 US$)

Total Purchases: 381000 US$
Total Sales 372001 US$
Difference -8999 US$
Average (bought) 18143 US$
Average (sold) 24800 US$
Average (bought + sold) -250 US$

Today, We delve into my brief forray into daytrading. I bought 4 cheap players who were young and had passable in their main attribute(s) and then turn around and sold three of the four for a decent profit. They were all on our team for less than a week so we will do three of these guys as a group. Next week, we will look at the fourth, Søren Andersen, who was sold to another FOFC team.

Chilean Alvarado Lanza
Chilean Alvarado Lanza plays for the Argentina team Metaguacha, # 1 in V.21. He starts about 1/3rd of all of their games at forward. He has 5 goals this season including a hat trick on 2/9/2003 in a 7-0 victory against Juventud de Saavedra.

Ben Magnusson
Ben Magnusson from Norge is now on the French team "C N team" which is # 4 in IV.5 and was just sold in the last week from the team I sold him to, the Gringos # 2 in VII.230 in Sverige. He has both a cup and league goal this season. In the last game for C N team, he played center midfielder.

Tommy Lyhling
Lastly, Tommy Lyhling from Sverige was sold to Hawkeye F.C., # 4 in V.75 and he went for a good $50K. He has started everywhere for that team, best playing at offensive winger last week for *~. But he has also played defensive winger and middie. He has three goals and currently sports a yellow card.

Weekly Press Release

2/24/2003
Darksiders Slam Hippos Back into 4th
In an ugly game, the Darksiders, the leading team in the race for promotion, crushed Houston 4-0. Ralph Kjellsson had 2 goals for the Darksiders and goalie Dawid Raduli's slump continued. The game got ugly in the second half as the Hippo's star defender Hugh Hebert was shown the door. Soon after, Julius Acker took down Nicusor Plesu and he will be out for a couple of weeks. After the Darksiders put the nail in the coffin, Houston Captain Mick Starks was carded for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Economy News
Thankfully, the sales brought up another $26K and change and our supporters are forgiving enough to still keep coming after our loss, even in a smaller number. I guess 6 straight wins prior builds up some good faith. I'm up to 691 and hoping to break 700 before season's end. The 5 spokeswomen (part of our committment to diversity in the workplace or some such nonsense) are clearly paid with money well spent.

EDIT: Minor Formatting Changes

SI

[sterlingice]

HIPPO SPOTLIGHT
Now for a new occasional feature entitled "Inside the Jock". And then the publicity team wisened up and decided to call it "Hippo Spotlight" instead. Basically, we take a profile of a player who will likely be with our team for quite a while. This inagural edition looks at our hotheaded leader who's value tops our charts.

Player: Mick Starks (7555487)
Number: 13
Age: 24 years

Current Status: passable form, healthy
Temperament: A nasty fellow who is balanced and honest.
Leadership: Has poor experience and passable leadership abilities.

Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 216 000 US$
Wage: 1 600 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 2

Stamina: inadequate
Goaltending: disastrous
Playmaking: weak
Passing: passable
Winger: solid
Defending: weak
Scoring: passable
Set Pieces: inadequate

Career Goals: 0
Career Hattricks: 0
League goals this season: 0
Cup goals this season: 0

Height/Weight: 6'1"; 180
Appearance: Crazy, short-haired redhead

Personal Bio: Mick Starks is the team leader on the field and off. A hothead with a really short fuse, Mick is never one to back down from a fight as is evidenced by the incident last year where he threw an overzealous fan through the bay window of a liquor store. Still, the native San Antonian is respected by all of his team as he is often first to rush into a fight by his teammates side. He is married and has two kids, Max and Julie.

Fun Fact: Mick's favorite movie is "Revenge of the Nerds 2"

Player Bio: On the field, Mick Starks is the official team leader game in and game out ever since Braden took over as coach. While he doesn't have any goals yet, he leads our wing attack and has set up many of Solomon's and Phelan's goals. Since moving to offensive wing, he has gotten **~ 6 out of 7 games. At 24, he is the 4th oldest player on this young team. During friendlies, if he plays, he is typically both the team captain and designated for set pieces as our two best set pieces guys rarely see time in friendlies (Crespo and Solomon are 27 and 29 and not worth training).

New Hippopotamus
Got a new backup goalie for $13K. He's American, 19yo, and inadequate. Welcome our new #3, Sidney Buckley.

Sidney Buckley (7898678)
19 years, poor form, healthy

A pleasant guy who is tranquil and upright.
Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities.

Nationality: USA
Assessed value: 52 000 US$
Wage: 920 US$/week
Owner: Houston Hippopotami
Warnings: 0

Stamina: wretched
Goaltending: inadequate
Playmaking: disastrous
Passing: disastrous
Winger: disastrous
Defending: disastrous
Scoring: wretched
Set Pieces: weak

SI

[sterlingice]

Preview
Well, now we are carrying a 5 game friendly losing streak. Not only that but since Raduli is still struggling, I'm going to get him in the game to try and play his way out of it. Our newly acquired inad backup, Sidney Buckley will be starting friendlies as of next week. Our two goalies have awful form: wretched or poor. Our goalie coaches have their work cut out for them. We still have 6 trainees in there, basically because that is how large our second team is. Also, we went with the 3-5-2 since I was tired of having our 3-5-2 slip to solid from excellent after friendlies so there might be a chance of confusion during fixtures that count. Anyways, about the other team, for those of you who don't know, the Woodlands are a rich suburb just outside Harris County and about 2 hours north of Houston. Those bastards refuse to pay metro taxes and are just rich snobs and yuppies, in general, so a win would feel nice and sweet.

Game Summary
Date: 2/27/2003 at 01:00
MatchID: 5054503
Arena: The Hippodrome
Crowd: 542


Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 542 to The Hippodrome. Hippopotami had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. They fielded: Raduli - Longis, Koch, Jonsson - Starks, Rumbold, Paige, Friedländer, Slingerland - Chang, Phelan.

Woodlands tactics involved an interesting 3-4-3 combination. The following players had been chosen: Rojas - Mills, Ryder, Durant - Lively, Torres, Taylor, Drake - Power, Castle, Dominguez.

The 2nd minute saw the home team take a 1 - 0 lead after a leak in the visitors right side defense. Scorer for Hippopotami was Jeremy Rumbold. Mick Starks struck a 30 metre free kick home in the 11th minute. 2 - 0 for the home team. The referee showed Hippopotamis Kyle Paige the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. A speedy charge from the left side of the field put Hippopotami lead up with 3 - 0. Edwin Phelan finished that one off competently, firing from an acute angle. Woodlands appeared unsure on how to play. Things were going to get worse for the visitors. Edwin Phelan squirmed himself through the central defense line in the 31st minute, asserting the lead to 4 - 0. The structure of the game started to change as Hippopotami decided to pull back and meet their opponents in the defensive zone. 4 - 0 was the half-time score. Hippopotami held the ball, with a clear 66 percent possession rate.

The Woodlands players spent the half-time break getting a rerun of the teams tactical organization. A bit later Woodlands´s Morris Power easily reduced to 4 - 1 after a misunderstanding in the home sides central defense line. Woodlands had made all their substitutions when Barry Rojas had to leave the game in the 74:th minute because of a pulled tendon, leaving the team a man short. In the 79:th minute Hippopotami put themselves up 5 - 1. The visitors defenders lost the ball to Defoe Chang coming up from the left, who proceeded to cooly round the goaltender and knock the ball home. Woodlands seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion about the organization of the team. Hippopotami put themselves up 6 - 1 when Philip Friedländer broke through on the right, leaving the entire defensive box behind him. Woodlands fought on and, in the 85:th minute Andy Castle was able to reply with 6 - 2 after some excellent moves on the right side finished off by an incredibly clever chip. Woodlands seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion about the organization of the team. Hippopotami held the ball, with a clear 57 percent possession rate.

The most dominating Hippopotami player was without a doubt Mick Starks. However, Kyle Paige made a disastrous appearance. The most dominating Woodlands player was without a doubt Gary Mills. Morris Power on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 6 - 2. The match ends 6 - 2.

Stadium

Terraces: 340 (9702)
Basic seats: 138 (3850)
Seats under roof: 51 (1740)
VIP seats: 13 (400)
Total: 542 (15692)

Ok, I really need to stop playing these teams with hardly any supporters.

Team Ratings

Houston Hippopotami
Midfield: wretched
Right Side Defence: poor
Central Defence: weak
Left Side Defence: inadequate
Right Side Attack: solid
Central Attack: inadequate
Left Side Attack: inadequate

Woodlands Elite
Midfield: disastrous
Right Side Defence: wretched
Central Defence: poor
Left Side Defence: poor
Right Side Attack: inadequate
Central Attack: passable
Left Side Attack: passable

Player Ratings
GK Dawid Raduli *
DW Gerard Longis *~
DM Zlatko Koch **
DW Patrik Jonsson **
WI Mick Starks **~
MI Philip Friedländer *~
MI Jeremy Rumbold *~
MI Kyle Paige ~
WI Klaas Slingerland **~
FO Dafoe Chang *~
FO Edwin Phelan **~

Total player experience: wretched
Team Attitude: Normal

Game Summary
Again, it's all about the midfield. Even my mediocre guys had it and his subs didn't today. It's good that Friedländer and Rumbold are up to *~ but Paige is still only getting ~ so I think as soon as he gets solid, he's getting sold. We jumped on them and buried them and it felt good!

Notes
Well, we are back to a couple of easy games in league so that's great. Anyone looking for a friendly for next week- just message me! I have a pretty uneventful two weeks until we go to play the 2nd place team in division the last week of the season. Next up: training improvements. We did stamina this week and probably will one of the next couple as well. It should drastically help our midfield play which will make us a force next year.

SI

[sterlingice]

TRAINING UPDATE
I never knew training stamina could be so much fun. While I doubt the team love the wind sprints Coach Braden had them do all week, it really paid off. Even coach got into the act as his stamina is up from disastrous to wretched; I'm guessing Mrs. Braden will be pleased.

Anyhoo, 10 of our 11 starters went up in stamina. The lone exception was starting forward Edwin Phelan. He was already at passable so no huge loss. Grizzled 29yo vet Derrick Solomon, from Oceania, showed those whippersnappers how it was done, as he became the first guy on our team to get an excellent in anything, bumping his stamina from solid.

For the second team, 4 of our 6 guys bumped in stamina. Unfortunately 2 of our 3 middie trainees did not bump and Kyle Paige remains at his disastrous status. He would be a halfway decent middie except for that. FYI, neither of the backup goalies increased in stamina.

Form wasn't hit too hard, thankfully, as you can see below. Unfortunately, Raduli is still at wretched. Nothing I can do but let him play through his slump and get him ready for next year.

Form
Starters: (+1) (-4)
Entire Team: (+5) (-6)

Value
Starters: (+9) (-2)
Entire Team: (+15) (-4)

Team Stats
Total Wages: 17200 (-1280)
Total Value: 1473000 (+56000)
Avg Value: 77526
Avg Age: 21
Avg Form: inadequate
Avg Experience: wretched
No of players: 19
Nationalities: 10

Future Training
Ok- can someone help me out on how form changes work in between seasons? What resets at the start of the next season? Anything? Also, how many weeks do we have to go? Right now, I'm looking at going back to training playmaking this week. Then stamina again, the week after that. Then playmaking again before the tough game. Then stamina most, if not all, of the offseason.

Supporters
Just thought I'd like to give a shout out to our loyal supporters and supportees. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by and posted in the guestbook (in order): Ardent, NevStar, ausonny, dk, hornedfrog, vexroid, ravenhawk, Doug5984, and PilotMan. Thanks guys. Also, if I haven't stopped by and dropped a line in your guestbook, just message me in game!

We Support
ausonny's Bees
dk's Screamin' Seamen
NevStar's Morrisville Morrisvillians
ardent's North County Raiders
vexroid's NE Oklahoma Sidekicks

In return, vexroid, NevStar, and ausonny support the Hippos and get to use the executive washroom and attached uber luxury suite in the Hippodrome with it's palatial marble interior, fine dining, and other "services".

Friendly
We were challenged out of the blue by a team from Sverige called Gurras BK. Normally, I don't take international friendlies (I just can't afford the trip) but he challenged me to cup rules at my place so who was I to decline a friendly with an international team on my field! It doesn't appear that he draws too many fans to his home friendlies (100-300) but he went on the road and drew 1200. Plus, the Hippo faithful will definately turn out for an international friendly, weather permitting. Hopefully the B squad can extend our friendly winning streak to 2 games. I'll be looking for a couple of wingers to replace Starks and Crespo so our starters don't have to start friendlies and our new backup goalie, Sidney Buckley will be in the net.

SI