Interview with Thimi

Goudi City manager thimi is arguably the most successful HT manager Scotland has seen, and certainly top of the pile of those still playing. With a record number of Scottish Cup wins (5) and 2 SPL titles under his belt, he owes his achievements to 6 years of dedicated research, unbridled ambition and meticulous number-crunching. But who is the real man behind the forum rants about bad luck from the match engine and the form monkey?

Mediocre manager and nosey parker JPtheBean caught up with Thimi in a dingy Taverna over some mezedes, sweet espressos and mandolato to discuss tactics, GM buttons, Supporter and a thing called 'real life'.

Firstly, congrats on your 2nd SPL win! Did that feel better than your first title, given that the competition was arguably higher last season (38)?

Thanks for the kudos :-)
I was very happy to win the 2nd title in a row, as I think this establishes Goudi City as one of the most successful teams in HT Scotland.
It's been a long journey after that cold night of January 2007 that I remembered this game that a Spanish friend had shown me and I decided to join.

To answer your question, it is true that the 1st title was one of my happiest moments in HT, as it usually is with the 1st times of good things in life.
I had been trying to win the SPL title for 6 seasons unsuccessfully, with the 3 of them having finished 2nd. That situation was really irritating, so a big weight went away when I finally did it.
Last season, the final match vs White Rabbit away from home was one of the most important matches I ever played, as I believe it is such big matches against strong opponents that make a team's reputation. I was very delighted to manage the win and grab the title at the end.

It was a great game where midfield proved to be decisive again. Before you won either the SPL or the Cup, which was the bigger target?

There was no such thing for me as preference to one of the titles. I always play board games in a very competitive way (I often "hate" my friends during the game time!) and my target was to win everything.

I will admit that I had a soft spot for the cup. This was due to me having made a relative impact as a manager in previous seasons with some cup wins I had pulled out against stronger teams than mine. But I always used to have an attacking team at home, and the set-up of the cup had allowed me to kick out some big names before arriving to the SPL. TOMS HIBEES were my biggest victim twice when I was in lower league. DEEDA was one of the best managers HT Scotland has seen over the years imo and it's a pity he decided to leave the game after years of competing to the highest level.

MOTSing in my first final was an easy choice, as I had already lost my chances for the SPL title, so it was not a matter of choosing one over another.
I had to make this choice in later cup finals like the last two seasons. Two seasons ago against the Trolleys I decided to not MOTS so that I go for my first SPL title with better chances. I ended up losing both and it was my first (and only so far) season in the SPL that I did not win a title.
Last season I MOTSed RATME as I did not believe I was the favourite in the league race and I prioritised the cup. I ended up losing the final and winning the league. Luck you see is a huge factor in this game when competing at the highest level..

How many times do you use MOTS in a season?

It depends really! On an average I would say 3, but last season was 4 due to special circumstances!!

Some of your boys are getting on a bit, is it possible to compete at the highest level whilst training new blood? If so, how? If not, why? Is this a major shortcoming of Hattrick or is it good to have a bit of 'ebb and flow' around teams at the top?

The main body of my squad (that being my 4 FWs that I have trained for years) is getting older, that is true sadly. And many of my most valuable players have already either gone or will have to go in the near future.

However, this was something I knew would happen and my strategic plan had to be adjusted to this reality.
With the only exception being my TDF, who had to be younger so that he responds to the scoring+passing training regime that I am still keeping, all my other transfers in recent years are either of equal or slightly only younger age than my 4 FWs. This means that I am creating a team that will be very strong for some seasons more and will eventually die when the players get over the 33-34 limit.
Having said this, I expected my team to hit peak performance about now, which has happened, and for the next couple of seasons.

As for training, I am only training for improving my team now and not for selling. This is unavoidable the way the game is set up but I don't see it as a short-coming. It would not make much sense if one team could compete at top level and at the same time train and make money as efficiently as teams in lower leagues do.

What do you look like? Personally I love some of the extra Supporter features on Hattrick e.g. avatars. I believe you only recently got Supporter - does a manager need Supporter to succeed? Also which CHPP tools do you use?

My relationship with supporter is not good. I started to play the game because it was free and I was never keen about paying to play a game on the web. I am not a consumer type of guy in my life either and I rarely spend on unnecessary stuff.
However, I have been given supporter gifts from friends in the past that I accepted (since it was for free!). The one I have now was offered to me by Steve our NT manager so that I could participate in the NT fed and give my opinion on matches etc. I am not sure if he got as valuable an input as he was hoping for. I just hope I did not disappoint his expectations.
So, no supporter is not necessary to succeed in HT at all. And that is one great aspect of this game that I hope the new owner of the game will never change. If they do, I know at least one passionate manager they will lose immediately!

From CHPP I don't use that many to be honest. I used to use Hattrick Organiser, but I have quit that since HT introduced the ratings prediction tool.
I also sometimes use the Hattrick-Youthclub to find twins of my young talents. I also use the HT_World database (http://www.ht-world.org/scotland/scouting.php) to update my players.

Yeah that really helps the NT scouts and is so quick and easy. Would you ever run for NT/U20 manager (Scotland, Greece or otherwise)?

The NT side of the game is very cool despite quite some inadequacies in its design. It is also a great way for a new manager to get to know some aspects of the game in its finest details with the help of the usually experienced NT managers.
I learnt a lot from my period as FW scout during macao's period in terms of selecting the best players, study my opponents, choose formation and so on.

I cannot say I am not interested to run for NT manager one day. And that would be for Scotland, not for Greece. Besides viewing myself as Scottish within HT, the Greeks spend much of their time fighting with each other (it's in their DNA), while I like the usually very supportive spirit of our smaller community.

But that will have to be after I start rebuilding Goudi City, as I don't have the time to efficiently manage two time demanding teams. I actually don't have the time to manage one this period and I am not putting equal time as I used to when I was a student.

I hope I still have the motivation when that day comes, given that with years and titles some of the spark is fading away even for a HT addict like me..

Well I hope that doesn't happen! So here's Season 39 and you have Wabbit, Sinky, Striders and Loggerheads to deal with along with Dog & the others in the SPL - what are this season's SPL, Cup and Masters challenges and targets?

Oh, this is an easy one. Beat them all and take the SPL title as well as the cup undefeated! Winning the double is one objective I have not succeeded in, so this has to be my target for this season.

The Masters is another story. I would fancy having a good run at it one day, despite understanding that the odds are not in my favour; only super rich teams have good chances of winning that title.
But I do have a strong team I believe in and if I am lucky with having several home draws and favourable results, then why not proceed to the later rounds? And then hope for some ME favouring ;-)
It won't happen most likely though..

Never say never! Oh, you didn't... Sudermann was SPL top scorer in Season 37, has been at your club for 3 1/2 RL years, and along with MacNet made massive contributions to the Scotland NT - is it OK to get sentimental about players even though they're imaginary?

Of course it's OK to get sentimental. I was sad the days MacNet and Sudermann turned 30, as this was a bell that their days are coming to an end..

Besides, this is another life we all live in a virtual environment, which from many points of view is not that different from our real lives. We all have our characters and personalities that most likely differ from our real selves in some aspects, but not so in others.

The phenomenon of second and third lives in virtual worlds is something that even science is studying these days with very interesting results. Having a second life here as a successful manager of a football team, I do understand by direct experience that although virtual, many aspects of my experience are not virtual at all..
Who knows what this new challenge will result in from an evolutionary point of view for human behaviour..?

Wow, easy there Dawkins!! From an evolutionary point of view, there's nothing Natural about Dog's GM buttons - which would you take away?

Haha!! I would take the one that prevents his players from getting injured. I would choose this because he does not have many players in his squad to cover for several injuries at the same period.

But he is a nice friendly lad, so why take some of his powers away when he spends all this time moderating our forum (!) and doing all these other tasks a GM has to do (?) for us to enjoy this game without problems?!

Yeah it's true, he does a great job, we'll allow him a few secret tricks. Do you have any real life (RL) goals for 2013?

Yes, of course. I do have my primary life to live and pursue goals in the real world too you know!
My first goal is to feel more relaxed and happy than in the recent years of my RL. This is because I have recently completed my PhD, which was a quite stressful period for me although I am usually a laid back type of guy.

Wow congrats! HT didn't seem to get in the way of that, how many hours do you think you spend on HT per week?

Thanks :-)
HT consumed a lot of hours during this period though. If I had spent all my time on my research, I would have probably done a finer job in half the time!! lol

The second RL goal is to start-up my own company and see the technology I have developed all these years applied in practice. I want to have a contribution in how the energy sector will develop in the next decades if I am fortunate enough to be still around.

Decentralised production of clean energy (and food in this context), as well as easy and cheap access to it are key challenges imo towards a more fair global society.

I totally agree, but let's discuss more important matters, and the main reason I'm chatting to you: I have an important game this weekend against a very defensively-strong team - how do I beat them?

Oh well. If they are very strong in defense, they must be weak elsewhere. Try to maximise your sectors where you have the advantage. If you win midfield with a good margin and your defenses are effective against their attacks, you should avoid losing at least which is a good thing.

Sun Tzu's strategy was all about avoiding the defeat. If you "guarantee" that, victory is then quite probable (somehow).
Trying to break through strong defenses in HT is not an easy task, especially if you are not an attacking team. You can always hope for SPs, SEs and the odd but frequent event of a weak attack scoring against stronger defense!

Well I think that's the lot! Some great answers there & so much articulate detail! I really can't thank you enough, hopefully the community will enjoy it too and get a lot from your insights. Maybe they'll even comment below...

Thanks for asking the questions and putting the effort to publish a nice article JP.

Link directly to this article (HT-ML, for the forum): [ArticleID=16632]