Hattrick Limited
Hattrick

Hattrick is the most popular online soccer management game in the world. As of November 7, 2017, it boasts a total number of users equal to 13,389,815 from all parts of the world (128 countries, 55 languages) and this year it celebrates 20 years since the creation of the site and the dispute of the first championship.

Hattrick was born in Scandinavia, more precisely in Sweden in 1997 from an idea by Bjorn Holmer. It is a free browser video game and a massively multiplayer online. At the time of its launch, on August 30, 1997, the first championship began with a total number of just 16 registered teams. But the game immediately became a success and rapidly developed across Europe and the world to become a true cult object.

It should be noted for completeness that precisely in Italy (as it could be otherwise in a country of coaches...) the game has particularly garnered followers, gathering an incredible number of enthusiasts that today amounts to 25,686 active teams.

This makes Italy specifically the league with the most active users ahead of Spain, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Portugal...

But what exactly is Hattrick? How does it work?

Meanwhile, for those who do not know, hat-trick literally means 'hat-trick,' in other words, when a player scores three goals in the same match and according to tradition, earns the right to take home the match ball as a trophy.

The game is based on a very simple and more accessible formula which, as far as I'm concerned, is preferable to more modern soccer management games that have now become something too complex to constitute genuine entertainment.

Hattrick, on the other hand, is very simple to manage. Yet it simultaneously offers the player the possibility to manage all the typical aspects of sports management games: from team management to choosing the coach and the system of play, the players to field. You can select a reduced staff limited to just four members; the international market for incoming and outgoing transfers is continuously open; you have to manage both the economic and financial aspect of the club and the technical one. Including the youth sector.

Each championship is made up of eight teams from the same nation. Round-robin format: both home and away rounds are played. There are, of course, also national and international Cups (the 'Hattrick Masters') and the commitments of the National team, whose coach is regularly elected by the members of that particular nation's community.

It is perhaps indeed the social aspect that is characteristic of Hattrick, whose site is equipped with a vast forum where you can practically discuss anything and topics of a football and extra-football nature and which in many ways recalls a bit the Debaserian formula where the confrontation can be as constructive as it can degenerate into the fiercest clash, but also into the most total fooling around.

The players' names in your soccer team are all invented (once, periodically, they organized real collections of names and surnames, so one of your goals became finding your alter ego in the universe of Hattrick) while you can customize your team's name and other small details like the stadium name and the fan club name. Additional customization and simplification options in team management are provided only for a fee. It seems that now they have also added the option to manage more than one team among the purchasable options, a possibility historically forbidden for obvious reasons by the rules. But in any case, there is no difference in the possibility of competing for victory between a normal user and a 'supporter.'

It must be said that the game itself has changed a lot over the years: soccer on Hattrick has evolved just as it has happened in the real world.

Substitutions and the possibilities of changing formation and system of play during the game have been introduced, but above all, the 'values' that determine the victory of a match have changed. Provided that players all have the following skills (goalkeeping, defense, playmaking, wing, passing, scoring, set pieces) and that each has a rating that ranges from the minimum 'non-existent' to reaching the maximum level of 'divine,' once matches were fundamentally decided exclusively on the basis of who fielded the strongest midfield and consequently everyone aimed to have very strong players in 'playmaking.'

Today for obvious reasons, namely the passage of time, experimentation in different systems of play and training methods, and the entry of new players, the variables that can decide a match have become more unpredictable and are to be evaluated on a game-by-game basis. Although, it must be said, in the end, predictions are almost always respected: if you have a team of flops, you can be tactically prepared all you want, but you are still almost certainly destined for defeat.

The positive aspect: there are many. But the main one is that you can play and manage everything even by dedicating just five to ten minutes a week.

The negative one: there are people who dedicate much more time and who will inevitably always be stronger than you. Consequently, since the number of players, that is, users, is really high, you will hardly manage to climb the different series and reach the top. Indeed, this without daily and methodical application is practically impossible.

My suggestion, consequently, is to play and join the community with the right moderation and without making it a real obsession. So instead of trying to be a tactical genius like Pep Guardiola, an indefatigable motivator like José Mourinho, a guru like Johann Crujff, or a battling provincial coach like Sor Carletto Mazzone, a prophet of attacking football like Zeman, adopt instead that serene and philosophical style that was typical and characteristic of what I consider and will always consider 'my' coach, that is Vujadin Boskov. Whether you win or lose, only in this way will you not tire of devoting that little time each week, which will not prevent you from becoming attached to your historical players and enjoying those small victories and satisfactions you will achieve by building your soccer team brick by brick.