How should we choose the National coach

At the end of every season, the users are asked to choose the National coach. U20 elections are followed by NT elections the next season, with each term lasting two seasons.

The purpose of this article is to describe the main criteria for making these choices.


Coach's performance

In my opinion, this is one of the most important criteria to be taken into account. Preparing a match for the national team is more complex than for the club. The future coach has to know how to do that very well, to take into account all the possible options of the opponent and to choose a tactic that would cover as many of those as possible.

In my opinion, a good coach is a user that has had lots of competitive matches throughout his club career, has played in the top leagues, reached the final stages of the cup and had to show a lot of tactical diversity. The experience gained from these matches will help him maximise the winning chances in the national team's matches.

At this level the opponents can play, in just about each match, both a very defensive tactic as well as a possession game or a very offensive game. The coach has to have a good prediction of what the opponent will choose to play, try to be unpredictable and not letting the opponent read his thoughts. Such things are also learned through practice.


National team experience

This criteria is also very important. The ideal candidate would have to already be familiarized with that particular part of Hattrick, to know what type of players to select, how to administer the team spirit, when to change the coach, how many players to bring in, what happens when he kicks out a player, etc. There are dozens of this type of small details and someone that knows them has a big advantage compared to the others.

I have often seen coaches that bring in over 20 players in the first week, although it would be ideal to only create a minimum squad for the first match and keep the empty slots in order to use them by bringing in the most in form players when they would be needed. It would be recommended that the coach would have been involved in another coach's staff, to have been involved in creating players or if he would have been the coach of another national team.


Time

From his presentation or through his activity you should be able to guess whether he has the necessary time for this job. An active user on the National Conference that answers constantly and competently to questions shows that he has the necessary time for the job. He would have to work many hours each week for the national team.

It is certainly harder than that of a club team. Friday won't be the day before the weekend for him, it would be the most busy day of the week. Also, it is almost mandatory for him to be online when the match starts, because the coach (this time I mean in game player) can be changed in the last seconds before the match. If he won't be able to do this, the opponent would easily guess his tactics based on the last coach that was set.

Intelligence and common sense

The user that represents the nation should be a user with common sense. Firstly, he will be communicating with other coaches and users from other countries so, from my point of view, he should have a certain agreeability and he should have a good knowledge of English. He would be representing the country, so the others might label us based on their interactions with him.
It is important that, after the team is eliminated from the competition, he would continue the job by giving experience to players and certain lineups. There have been cases when some coaches got upset and, after elimination, they completely ignored the national team.
The coach has to make a correct squad selection. I don't believe you would like to have a coach that would bring players in by other criteria than their value. If he would recruit by friendship the national team would suffer.

Communication

We all enjoy reading a preview for every match that includes some info on the opponent. We want to see some explanations when losing and, more than that, good communication between the coach and community will attract more users, both in working for the team and also in viewing the matches. It is the coach's duty to communicate with the users that he represents. I personally enjoyed very much seeing coaches that have the courage to post a message in minute 0, before the ratings are displayed, explaining what he thought about the match, what formation did he thought the opponent is most likely to play and coaches that explained their decisions with solid arguments.


Transparency

There are many users that don't understand why their player is not included in the squad. A good coach should provide transparency in team selection, information on the squad and to answer to all the appropriate questions regarding selection. He should show care about the community's opinions and to treat them with respect. This motivates the users that train players and those that work in monitoring them.


Involvement in working for the national teams. I consider that a user that has trained natuonal players should be rewarded for that work. Thus a perpetuum mobile climate is created, which is very useful for the team and would represent a stimulus for a more consistent involvement in preparing future generations.


Staff

It isn't the most important criteria as it is usually chosen after the election. Still, it is useful for a coach to receive the perspectives from 2-3 experienced users even though the final decision will still be his to make. From several viable ideas there are more chances to choose the best. A voter should make sure that the person he votes is not controversial so that he would have problems in finding experienced users to help him. Without a good staff to support the coach there are high chances for it to be pushed towards disaster.


I am sure that there aren't many candidates that would satisfy all the criteria above, there might even be none. Still, I hope that you will decide what principles are more important and vote accordingly.

Be responsible when voting, your vote counts!
Don't vote the user that someone else suggests, vote for the one that you think is the most suitable. Don't let someone else decide for you! The national squads' performances depend on you. Choose the most competent coach!

Also, in Hattrick it is forbidden for someone to request your vote. In case you receive a message in which you are asked to vote for a particular candidate, report it, as this type of solicitation is illegal. Thus you will avoid the situation in which a user would be elected as coach only because of the unsolicited messages sent to users that are not involved in the national team phenomenon.

On the other hand, if you favor a candidate and consider him to be the best for the job, don't try to convince other users into voting for him; because it is illegal and that user could be disqualified. The only public means through which to support a candidate are messages on his conference thread (not on the thread from the National Conference) and through Public Announcements.

There are countries with a small number of local users, where you can win the elections with a single vote. Unfortunately, it's easy for a coach to have 2-3 friends in a small country and to win the elections many seasons in a row. Since the additional clubs appeared, many users who have teams in those countries can get affected by this situation.
In my opinion, the rules should change and, in this way, a user could vote in the country where his second team is, because, as I said, the performance of the coach can affect them, too. This would avoid the situation where someone wins the elections on other criteria than value. I'm waiting for your opinions about this subject on the forum (16872908.1).


Remember: for a strong national team a good coach is not enough! Any of us can contribute more or less. To achieve that, write and read more stuff related to the national teams!

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This article was adapted and translated by kuumba (4268913) and Flatron330 (11528071). Original article was published in Hattrick Press Romania: (19208).

Link izravno na ovaj članak (HT-ML, za forum): [ArticleID=19229]