Hattrick Introductions

* Challenges
    Friendlies are an important part of the game, allowing you to arrange practice matches with other club owners. You can also check if other clubs have challenged you to a match, or if you've already scheduled one this week. You can challenge other club owners on their team information page.

* Orders
    This is where you keep track of match orders. Next to each scheduled upcoming match you will see a formation icon which you can click to give your match orders. If you have already given your orders, there will be a red tick inside this icon as well, but you can continue to change your match orders until 15 minutes prior to kick off. You can also place orders several matches ahead, which is useful if you expect to be away for a while.

    The orders form looks a bit like a football pitch. The default team lineup is 4-4-2, and this is how the team will be displayed. You choose the players for each position from the scrolling menus. When you've found a formation you're happy with, you then need to decide on individual player orders. You can select if a player should play in an offensive or defensive manner. Players may be swapped around as you wish, such as a wing back becoming an extra midfielder, or an extra forward. The team would then, with these new orders, change from the default 4-4-2 lineup to 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formation. This might be a shrewd strategy, depending on the team's experience of playing this kind of lineup. The experience they have with particular formations can be seen on the "Training" page.

* The match report
    The match report is the closest you get to the smell of grass and mud in Hattrick. This is where you not only get to read about the match after it is played, but can also follow it live as it unfolds. The match report is a written story, a kind of newsflash, where you get the highlights of the game. The best part of it is that it updates itself live as the match goes on, giving additional life to Hattrick on match days.

    The match report also contains information on weather conditions, attendance, and of course, who's playing who and where the match is taking place. You'll find the match reports in the match schedule, under the heading telling you the team fixtures - for example, "Warrington Warriors - Cheltenham Chasers".

    A lot of information can be read between the lines in the match report. A player that scores many goals is fantastic, but don't forget that he might also be receiving many brilliant passes from his teammates.

* The grade report
    The match report contains a link to the team's grade report, which is a description of how each individual player performed during the match. Hattrick has an open grade scale, from 0 to infinity. A player receiving a zero grade is really dire, but this rarely happens. The grades awarded are "Hattrick stars", and come in the form of full and half stars.

After the grade there's a note on what individual order or repositioning the player has been subject to during the game. The grade makes allowance for this. For instance, if a wing back is ordered to play offensively, his skill as a winger is more important to his grade, and his defensive capabilities less so, than for a wing back playing in a normal mode.

The grade report only takes into consideration how the player performed individually, and is meant as a tool for comparison between players, not teams. If, for example, the team's atmosphere was poor, or some other factor influenced the team as a whole, this won't appear in the grade report. In order to compare teams, you can use the team's performance evaluation ratings found on the match report page.

Main menu - Tools

The "Search" menu is where you'll find a number of functions for locating certain information within the Hattrick system. You can search by player, owner, club, region, arena or match.

The "Transfers" link takes you to the transfer pages, which are an important resource for the successful or ambitious club owner. Since the Hattrick transfer market is extremely active it's important to know exactly the type of player you require and how to find him. Therefore, the transfer pages have a search system enabling you to search for listed players by age, TSI, position, transfer deadline, or other attributes.

When you find the player you're looking for, click on his name to get more information or to place a bid. Hattrick requires that you raise the current bid by at least 1000 € (or equivalent in your currency) or at least 2%, whichever is greater. Of course, you're entitled to raise the bid by more if you want.

* HT Live

The HT Live system is a relatively new addition to Hattrick. From individual match pages, you can select up to 10 separate games to watch from around Hattrick. You will get automatic updates on a minute-by-minute basis while the matches are in progress.

Main Menu - Your Country

A successful club owner keeps up to date with what's happening in the Hattrick world. Who's next to move up to the highest division? What kind of tactics do top teams apply? Which teams succeed in the cup, and why? How did my friends fare in last week's round?

The "League" link, which bears your country's name, is used to navigate around Hattrick's league system. The opening page is the national information page, with a "Hall of Fame" and user statistics for the series system. You can also check out the different regions in the country, how many teams they have and which ones are the best. The "Cup" link in the menu will allow you to follow the National Cup, while the "National Team" and "U-20 Team" links will take you to information on your nation's representative teams.

Main Menu - International

Here you will find everything relating to Hattrick's National teams. You will find information about both the senior squad and the U20 team, including past history. The World Cups for the senior squad and U20 team are played in alternating seasons. This is also where you will find information about the Hattrick Masters, the world club cup.


Main menu - Help

These are Hattrick's information pages that all new site visitors can access. This is where you can read about the people behind Hattrick, the company behind Hattrick, and our plans for the future.

"Rules" and "Help" are designed to assist you in solving your problems and queries on your own, without asking any of our helpful, yet overworked, Gamemasters. The "rule of thumb" is this: Gamemasters help with administration, keeping an eye out for cheating and recovering misplaced passwords, not for general tips on how to get better at the game. This is something you have to find out for yourself, or from asking on the conferences.

Contact

From time to time, you may have a need or reason to contact the Hattrick workers. You can do this by clicking the submenu link "Contact us" under "Help" in the main menu.


The Community menu

The community pages are a collection of links to other homepages and web sites relating to Hattrick. Lots of teams have their own homepages, and it is something we encourage. Other teams develop CHPP tools to help Hattrick, or publish magazines and news services about the game. This pleases us to no end!

To increase interaction between our users there are several different modes of communication built into the site.

* The mailbox

    Hattrick's own mail service means you can discuss strategies with your mates, or check an opponent's self-confidence out before a cup match, without having to leave the site. You can always send messages to other club owners by visiting their own information page. All mail sent to you ends up in the mailbox.

* Conferences

Hattrick has its own conference system for every series and national league, as well as for the various federations. You can access these by clicking "Conferences" in the Hattrick menu. They're filled to the brim with experienced Hattrick users, and are places suitable for discussions of the deeper kind. There are conferences in many different languages.


The Hattrick Flash

The Hattrick flash is Hattrick's own news channel. If you are a member of Hattrick Supporter, this window is automatically updated once a minute. Things you might see here are notification of when you get a new mail or if someone is out-bidding you for a player.


Top bar

In the top bar you will find quick links to your club, your series and your league - useful on trips abroad! Along with these, there is a clock with the local HT time and date and a count of how many users are currently logged into the site.