Comunidad » Hattrick Press

32 seasons in a row in 1st Division! (part 1)

Escrito por Zabal_

My team L'auberge espagnole (463279) has just played its 448th game in a row in 1st Division, from 2011 until today. That means 32 seasons trying to stay at the highest rank. In this article we'll go through key moments, special matches, things to avoid while you develop your training plans and share some really striking stats!

Part 1 available in French: (22460)

Indeed, this ain't the only way to play and win, some managers will keep creating the strongest team possible, and as consistent as possible regarding age and experience. They will go up the divisions and have amazing ratings for 4/5 seasons, gain titles, before being forced to sell everything and start from the bottom again with a brand new project and a new team.
Everyone is able to play as he wishes, I'm only giving some hints if your goal is to stay in 1st Division as long as possible.

The club starts in 2008, season 35. The objective back then is to quickly be able to train a young player from the Academy. After 2 seasons training scorers, a goalkeeper is promoted in the senior team and I hired a second one to fill the second slot.

In season 38 (May 2009), the team was just promoted to Division 3, the two goalkeepers turned 19 and one is playing for the U20 National Team.
Decision is made by the end of season 39 to sell one of the two goalkeepers, to switch to a winger training and to buy great young players.
I hire 3 wingers with the aim to have them in the U20 team, and I hire another one to fill the 4th slot available.
A winger from my country, who will turn U20 player and captain. A French winger (the famous "Cuzi"), the best of its generation, bought 4 millions € after its Academy training. And a winger from Tanzania, the only one from its generation to be promoted in a senior team that season. This last one will play 52 games in the U20 National Team. Still the record for this country today.
It was a very strategic buy as he would get a lot of experience (more information on those 3 players on the wiki page of the club: (https://wiki.hattrick.org/wiki/L%27auberge_espagnole#Notable_players)).

Early in season 43 (August 2010), the 3 wingers are playing in their U20 teams and will play qualifications during the whole season, as the club is being promoted in Division 2 after 6 seasons playing in Division 3.

By the end of season 43, my wingers are 21 years old and I need to think about the future:
=> I can either sell them so they can be trained properly for their Senior National Team, or I can keep them and provide this training myself. A lot of users would sell at this stage and train new U20 potential players, buying very strong young ones with the money made. I must admit here that it was very nice to see my players play international games and receive notifications about this on the Friday nights...
=> But being just promoted in Division 2 (and even if the opponents were not so strong 12 years ago!), I feel like going forward in this adventure and do what it takes to promote in Division 1, using my 3 wingers as a good starting point for my roster.

For 4 seasons, I play in Division 2, training mostly Playmaking for my wingers.
In the end of season 46 (October 2011à my team is finally promoted in Division 1!.
My 3 wingers turned 24 years old when they discover the elite league, with quite a lot of experience, in particular my player from Tanzania who plays for the Senior National Team since he's 22.

The season 47 is the very first one of my 32 seasons in a row spent in Division 1.
After 4 seasons, I manage to win my first Champion trophy in season 51 (May 2013), and I also won my first National Cup in this period! My 3 wingers played their first Masters games the following season, at the age of 29.
The period a player is 28-32 years old is generally the best. This is when you need to optimize the results, or at least try to.
My team has a solid foundation with my 3 wingers stuffed with experience (30+) to go as far as possible in Championship and National Cup.
The club will manage to be on the podium during 16 seasons in a row, winning many titles, and reaching frequently semi-finals, finals, and trophies of the National Cup. That led the team reach the Masters many times as well.

In season 56 (November 2014), my 3 stars are 33 years old at least, and it's time to take a crucial decision once again: many managers had reached this point before me, you need to sell everything and start training 17 years old players, or try to maintain your team in the highest division as you try to refresh it, using all your money and players at your disposal.
Regarding the performance, my season 55 was pretty good. I won my 3rd National Cup and finished 3rd in the first Division.
Most of the managers will start from the bottom again because the team is old, and they don't have so much money left in the bank. Training young players is still interesting as you can shape your young players the way you want.

Season 56 is my 10th season in Division 1, I'm well installed there now (I'll mention this again later), I just bought a new great goalkeeper last season and I have a lot of money in the bank thanks to the Cup and the Masters. Most of all, I have no good player to come in my Academy. That's why I decide that after the Masters, I would sell two of my great wingers and buy 3 scorers to train in Scoring.

Back then, prices were way less expensive than today. A 27 years old goalkeeper with 17 in GK, 12 in Def and 20 in Set Pieces would cost about 8 millions € by example.
The difficult part was to manage buying young players to train and buying players to replace the older players.
You need to chose a training that suits the high level, that would make playmaking for young inner midfields of 24/25 years very complicated to my opinion.

So, I sell two of my great wingers for 6 millions € more or less.
The 3 scorers are paid 9 millions €, they are 25 years old (2 technical and 1 head players).
I also buy a new winger (3,5 millions €) who is 28 years old and a Inner midfield towards Wing who may play winger or inner midfield.
I keep my winger from Luxembourg (captain) and turn him into an excellent coach for my team. With its 41 levels of experience, turning him does not cost that much.
Obviously, my central attack ratings aren't that great at the beginning, but with good wingers and inner midfields towards wings, I can compensate with good left and right attack ratings.

In season 57 (11th season in Division 1), the new plan seems to work just fine, as I won the Championship again! I train scoring for my 3 main scorers and I bought some extra young players to fill up the slots with quick sales after a few ups.

For the 7 next seasons, the team wins three more Championships and two National Cups.

In season 64 (May 2017), it's the golden age of the club, winning both Championship and National Cup. If you analyze this to fast, you'll think things are going pretty well, but looking closely will make you realize that midterm situation is not.

=> The team focuses on 3 main sources of revenues: tickets, bonuses and academy revenues.

++ I already mentioned this, but good performances in Championship and Cups are crucial to last in the highest divisions.
When you start losing games, especially away, you have lower attendance when you play home because of unhappy fans. Instead of generating 800K€ in revenues, you only make half of this.
Same thing in National Cup. A quick loss will cost you a minimum of 400K€ every week past the first rounds.

++ Bonuses are very important: I've played my first promotion game after 19 seasons in Division 1 and 17 seasons on the podium. And in National Cup, each round generate a lot of cash, even in the side cups. All this money is money your opponents won't have. Some will earn more, but most of them will earn less.

++ In the end, the Academy: personally, I spend a lot of time on my Academy, trying not to train properly my young players, but trying to train as many as possible on a given period, combining opposite profiles. This implies to think well ahead on your training plan and what training to give, playing as many matches as possible and finally, promoting the young player, have him play 1 minute in the Senior team (for the commission of the previous club), and sell him at the right time. I often see sales on Thursday afternoon, ruining the sale of the player.
Don't forget commissions, even if you lose 1000€. Well trained, he will be worth 5 millions € when sold again at 21 years old by example, which will generate 112500€ for you with nothing else to do! Of course all your players won't make you earn so much money, but you get my point here. Each time your players will be sold, you'll earn 2% as the original club, so in the end it makes a lot of money. Over the last 18 seasons, I've earned 400K€ in commissions per season.

I've created a chart with all my players sold since I created my Academy back in 2008:
(https://wiki.hattrick.org/wiki/Youth_players_promoted_by_l%27Auberge_espagnole)

Let's look at my season 64 again: during the 5 previous seasons, in Cup and Championship, the team performed quite well. Problem was in the revenues of the Academy, since during those 5 seasons (from 58 to 63) I only sell for 2.5 millions € of young players, or 500K€ each season.
500K€ minus the costs (320K€ each season) and the net revenue is 120K€ per season.
It means that all this time and until my double win (Championship + Cup) my team is growing old since I don't have enough money to renew it.

In season 65 (August 2017), it was obvious that I would play the demotion game for the very first time. I managed to get through this, but I need to react.

With luck, in season 66, I manage to promote a nice young player and sell him 1.5 millions €. I take this opportunity to sell my 3 scorers as well, and buy new scorers to train. But it's never easy in this game and the following season I ended up 6th in the Division 1, with quite some luck for the last rounds and with only one sale of 1000€ with my young players...
Demotion game is won but it's still an harmless warning.

From season 68 (May 2018) and for the 5 next seasons, direct consequence or simple coincidence, I decide to reset all my Academy scouts and hire multiple incredible young players, that will save me from this terrible phase.
=> Nearly 20 players are sold, including 4 sold between 3 and 7 millions €! They will all become U20 players later on. To compare with the 4 previous seasons, my best sale was 600K€.

This case intake allows me to renew my players growing older and to gain visibility for upcoming seasons.
On the results side, the club has both good (2 new titles) and less good (2 demotion games), due to early loss in National Cup, which is always a pain throughout the season (Being able to PIC in Cup is very important when you prepare Championship games as anyone knows), and I also had to face quite unlucky results.

Translated from French to English by Tryskell (5242925)