In this series we will to some of the best managers around the globe. First out is Ratsia who for the third season in a row manages FC Vompatti in the finnish premier division Mestaruussarja.

Hello Ratsia, can you tell us a little about the person behind the screen?
A little, I am a 28yo post graduate student/researcher working on machine learning, neutral networks and such.I live together with my wife who is also quite successful HT-manager, currently playing in div II for second season in a row despite starting a lot later than me.

My main hobbies, besides HT of course, include racing simulators (mainly league racing with Grand Prix Legends and rFactor) and boardgames. In addition to playing various kinds of boardgames I like to think about and discuss game design, even though I have never actually finished any designs of my own.

Where does the name of your team come from and how come you named your team FC Vompatti?
Vompatti is Finnish for wombat. I don’t remember why exactly I chose that name; I guess I might have asked my wife (well, girlfriend back then) about what I should call my team in this online game I’m trying, and then just added FC in front of whatever she answered. I never thought then that I would still be playing the game after four and half years.

Why do you think FC Vompatti has been so successful?
I would say that the biggest reason why I am now in first division is that I took the advice on focusing on multiskilled players early enough. In particular, I built my success on top of high passing when passing training was still quite rare, and in fact started my long-term strategy relying on passing already before the wage change that finally made it feasible. Today there are lots of teams with better passing than my team, but a few seasons ago I really had an edge that helped me to promote. It’s a lot easier to maintain the position in high division, so it’s not that big problem that I have lost that particular advantage.

Another thing that has helped a lot is that I have always had quite strong defence, though today it is also starting to be just quite average for my division. Having good defence ratings, in particular possibility to boost them further if needed, limits the tactical choices of the opponents quite a lot, and helps to also snatch points against otherwise stronger opponents. Being able to play counter attacks is also extremely important, and I definitely wouldn’t be in div I without CA.

How do you see the future for FC Vompatti?
I am soon having my team “ready”, which means I should start seriously fighting for the championship in a season or two. I will probably slowly try to achieve it during the next few seasons, while all the time trying to avoid sacrificing the future in any way. That is, if pressing hard for the championship meant that I would have a significant risk of demoting 1-2 seasons after that I will not do it. I’ll rather take 10 seasons in div I without titles than 3 seasons with one title.

After 2-3 seasons I will have to start being more active about renewing my squad, which will be interesting. I have a few alternative plans for that.

Do you have any advice to new or less successful managers on how to succeed in the tough Hattrick world?
My main advice would be to avoid overtraining at all costs. It may be a good idea to buy overtrained players occasionally for temporary use if the player is cheap enough (learn to compute the total cost!), but training them is practically always a very bad idea. Not only the player loses value but you also lose a training slot. What, then, is overtraining? Anything you can’t easily keep in your own team. Don’t think about what others possibly can afford to have, just think about your own team. If world class is too expensive for you (that is, you couldn’t keep 11 world class players in your team and still have some wage budget left to have subs) then training to world class is already overtraining.