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Long Shots team wins the Supporter Week Trophy

Napisao Zorbas

The Supporter Week Trophy is a competition that many would like to win. Not only for the trophy in your prize shelf, but because the winner goes home with lifetime Diamond Supporter. 😉

peikonpoika (1934878) won the trophy this season, with his team, FC Kobrakäsi (556643), playing Long Shots tactic. It has never been done before! He kindly accepted to answer some questions and we hope that you will enjoy the reading.

Q: First of all, thank you for accepting the interview. Congratulations on your performance in the Supporter Week Trophy, how does it feel to have won it?

A: The pleasure is mine, but thank you. Yes, this win was my very first big one. I can't describe my feelings in English. I mean, after 12 years of playing the game, I finally made my ht-dreams come true. It felt like I won the Olympic gold medal or something like that. The Finns cheered me up and I couldn't sit on my bench when the final whistle came. A few minutes later there could have been one or maybe two tears in my eyes, when I realised what happened.

Q: The final match (9945428) was not an easy one. As a rule of thumb, a team that plays Long Shots will always try to win possession, what did you feel in the beginning of the match, when you first saw the live team ratings? Would you kindly share with us a bit more about the way you prepared this match?

A: At first, it was a moment like David vs. Goliath, when I scouted my final opponent. Real Madrid was a so unbelievable tough team and I knew I was gonna lose the midfield battle. I tried everything like CA or over-defensive tactics, but I wasn't satisfied. Their attack was too powerful or I was losing too much midfield. I had to put all my midfield power on the field and protect my central defence. By doing that I was forced to open my side defences a little bit. That was risky. I was hoping I could guess their wings right or they didn't attack so much there. Well, I didn't guess everything, but my boys did the awesome work by stopping all their attacks and winning most of the situations. This time it was the right choice to put on an extra effort in the midfield, but it could have gone either way easily. This is a hard tournament to win (maybe the hardest), cause midfield ratings are close to each other and there is always a good change to make a surprise.

Q: Generally speaking, what is your opinion about the Long Shots tactic, what are its strong/weak points? By playing it, you have just promoted to the top league of your country, what are your expectations for the season that has just started?

A: Needless to say, the strong points are midfield and defence, of course. Those will stop most of the opponent's goal chances. The attack is at the same time weak and strong. Most of your chances won't score a goal, but a LS-team still have quite a good chance to score by long shots or freekicks/penalties. When the opposite's keeper is weak, this tactic will punish that. I have to say there isn't too much tactical choices and most of the teams play 550 without any attack. Maybe that's our weak point, because we are predictable. I couldn't bring much attack either, but maybe somebody else can. I hope the next step for this very special game style is bringing in something new. It isn't an easy thing to do, I know that now. I think the Supporter Week Trophy is the best one to win with a LS-team, because there is a neutral zone and no confidence. In the league, there is a huge home advantage, away games are difficult to win and the confidence makes the opponents more dangerous. My expectations are just to stay up, because there are so many good teams there. We'll see.

Q: I understand that a Long Shots team is not everyone's cup of tea, what made you build such a team?

A: Over 4 years ago, I relegated from our top league and my players were over 35 years old. I thought I had done it all by trying all tactics (except LS), playing high and being part of the National Team group. I thought about quitting, but I wasn't ready to give up. This team has a unique place in my heart. It was difficult then and it would be even more difficult today. Where can I find motivation to continue?, I thought those days. Luckily, I was tracking some Finnish LS-teams and asked for their advice about this kind of playing. Piece by piece, I got information, found my motivation and finally made my dream come true by winning this tournament. Thanks to Kuulis (9678276), this would never have happened without his advice.

Q: When you started, what was your training plan? If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

A: I have never been good at making plans. Especially long-term plans. My bank account was almost empty then, so I had to make a new beginning, a fresh start. I read some press articles and searched on global for information about LS. They all said the same. Buy young players and train scoring or defending first. I thought I would do it differently, by training playmaking high up first with some wing attacks. Why? I hate losing games so badly that I decided to get back on the track as soon as possible, by winning the midfield. If I succeed in that, I should win series, make prize money and promote faster. I bought also some young wingers to score goals. So at that point, I was like a normal team.

When my midfield was ready, I sold some of my young players and invested in a couple of defenders. Then there was the hardest choice: shooting or scoring? I chose scoring, which was the faster way, but the problem was that I could only train 6 of my players. I took a risk and chose to buy better LS-defenders later. Slowly, my team started to turn into a LS-team by giving players scoring and SP trainings. I even somehow managed to save money and was able to buy old LS-defenders and a goalkeeper, one by one. It has been a long road to build this kind of team, but it was worth it. You can see your work and your players growing up.

I made so many mistakes. I was too optimistic about pulling together LS and wing attack, but I couldn't mix those combination in the end. Nowadays new game engine doesn't support that, because it supports wing towards midfield game. Today, the opponents have stronger attacks than ever before and my team needs even more defense. If I ever do this again, I would train defending on my inner midfielders. Now they don't have too much defending and the team suffers because of that. Well, maybe I have to be more patience in the beginning, also.

Q: I can see that it is not really easy to build such a team, not very many LS players available on the Transfer List and when you find them you'll have to spend a lot. Yet, let's say that you are in the Hattrick Masters final, who would you prefer to play against: a powerful, balanced team OR a team that is specialized in Long Shots? Why?

A: I must say I would choose Long shots. I still believe, even after winning this Trophy, that a balanced gamestyle, with 3 attack sides is more effective than long shots. I hate to be the underdog and against other LS-team I could be closer to win the Hattrick Masters.

Q: What are your best results/happy memories that you achieved with your Long Shots team?

A: When I started this project, my original target was promote to the third division. It was a memorable moment when I reached that, eventually. But when this Supporter trophy came out six seasons ago, it was my main target to win it one day. It took 5 big disappointments, but this time it went a little bit better and I got the jackpot :D. And, of course, getting back to our top league is something that I'm proud of.

Q: The number of teams that are playing now Long Shots tactic is increasing, is it worth doing it? What advice do you have for those managers that are planning to build such a team?

A: This isn't a newbie's tactic. It takes nerves to build it and if you like to change tactics a lot, this isn't your style. But if you feel that you have done almost everything in Hattrick, this might be your solution to find back your motivation. It takes years, but eventually it's worth it. If you are broke, I recommend you to get some money first and do not forget to train defending a lot, like I did, damn it. 😊 You will need that. There will be more competitors in the future and maybe you have to think carefully what makes you so special, when comparing to the other LS-teams. There will be a few hundreds, maybe few thousand more LS-teams in the future and you have to beat them all. How to do that, I don't have those answers right now.

Q: Thank you for your answers, congratulations once again and good luck in the new season!

A: Thank you. I hope this will help you or some other readers somehow. 8 years after the launch of the LS tactic in January 2009, a LS team has finally won a major international trophy. I'm so proud of that and want to thank the whole LS-society for their support. Who's the next one? 😉

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