National teams

National team competitions

The National teams compete against each other in three interconnected tournaments. The continental championships, the Nations Cup and the actual World Cup. The competition cycle spans two seasons. It starts with the continental championships for European, American, African and Asia/Oceania leagues and ends with the World Cup.

The Nations Cup is a lesser tournament for teams that did not reach the World Cup and is played in parallel to the World Cup.

Continental championships

Every National team in Hattrick is guaranteed a place in their continental championship. These continental championships are played in groups of 6 teams. Groups are seeded based on the National Team ranking (see below).

The continental championships have a Round-Robin format (double matches - home away) and last for 10 weeks with quarter finals, semi finals and finals in the last week.

The best 8 teams in every region, based on their position, points, goals difference and goals scored will play quarter, semi-finals and finals while the rest of the National Coaches can schedule friendlies on Fridays. In the quarter finals, the top 4 teams (based on position, points, goal difference, scored goals, random if all else is equal) randomly face the bottom 4 teams that qualified to the quarter finals, and two teams from the same group will not face each other in the quarter finals. The winner will be named continental champion, and is awarded a Gold trophy. Silver and Bronze trophies are awarded to the teams placed 2nd and 3rd-4th respectively.

World Cup

The World Cup starts at week 13 of the first season and lasts for the rest of season 1 and the entire season 2. It is divided into 5 rounds, followed by semi finals and finals.

96 teams participate in Round 1 in 16 groups of 6 teams in a Round-Robin format. The first 4 of each group will proceed to Round 2, while the rest are eliminated.

Round 2 will have 16 groups of 4 teams in a Round-Robin format and the first 2 of each group will proceed to Round 3.

In Round 3 we have 8 groups with 4 teams where they play one match with every opponent in a neutral venue and the top 2 of each group promotes to Round 4.

Round 4 and round 5 will have 4 and 2 groups respectively with 4 teams. Every team will play against each other once at a neutral arena and the top 2 of each group promotes to the next stage.

Both the semi finals and the final are at neutral venues. The winner of the final is named World champion, and is awarded a gold trophy. Silver and bronze trophies are awarded to the runner-ups.

Before each round the team spirit and team confidence will fully or partially reset to the reset values. For example, if the current team spirit is at level 9 and the reset value is 5 with the 80% reset, your team spirit will be decreased by (9 - 5) * 0.8 = 3.2 levels. Reset and midpoint values for the daily updates, for both Team Spirit and Team Confidences are 5.0.

Nations Cup

Teams that did not manage to qualify for the World Cup will play in the Nations Cup, which takes place alongside the World Cup. This tournament is played in the Swiss format tournament (similar to the Supporter Week Trophy).

This is not merely a consolation tournament, but can be important for smaller teams as the final standing in the Nations Cup is used for the seeding of the next continental championship. At the end of the Nations Cup, during the semi-finals and finals of the World Cup, the top 8 teams will have a knockout tournament and the winner will get a trophy - the top 4 teams (based on position, points, goal difference, scored goals, random if all else is equal) randomly face the bottom 4 teams that qualified to the quarter finals.

During the Nations Cup, players cannot be injured, but cards work as in any other tournament. Formation experience will carry over from the Continental Championship, with a possibility to reset formation experience just like before the World Cup, and then be updated as normal after every Nations Cup match.

The winner is awarded the Nations Cup trophy.

World Cup qualification

96 teams progress from the continental championships to the World Cup.

Each continent has their own World Cup slots, which are awarded to the best placed teams in each group of the Continental Championships group stage. As we can see in the table below, Europe has 32 slots, Asia-Oceania 21 slots and Africa and America 12 and 20 each

A number of Wildcards will be awarded for teams that did not qualify directly through the group stage of the Continental Championships. With 11 available Wildcards, the best 22 teams that did not qualify for the World Cup, based on their points, goal difference and goals scored in the group stages in Continental Championships, will be selected for a Wildcard Playoff.

In the Wildcard Playoff, the team with the highest ranking (a ranking based also on previous World Cup results) will be matched against the team with the lowest ranking, and the team with second highest ranking with the team of the second lowest ranking, and so forth. The playoff is played home and away, with a total reset of Team Spirit and Team Confidence before the first match. In case of a tie, the second match will have extra time and penalties.

National team ranking

Each national team has its own ranking which is used as seeding for the Continental Championships groups draw. The last 5 seasons have an impact for this ranking, but the effect is decaying over time which means the oldest performances have less effect on the ranking.

There are 3 factors that affect rankings: the result of each match (M), the importance of the match (I) and how strong the opposing team was (T). Specifically, the formula used to calculate the ranking is as follows: P = M x I x T

For the variable T, we subtract the ranking of the opponent team from the number 250.

Then, the final ranking is the average number of points (P) of the last 5 seasons weighted by 100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 20% with 100% the current season and 20% 4 seasons ago. Rankings are updated after every match.

Continental championship draw

For the Continental championship seeding we use the National Team Ranking to create the draw pots. The first position of each group is always reserved by the top teams, where group 1 will get the top 1 team, group 2 the second team etc Then we have 5 draw pots, one for each position in the group filled with the rest of the teams sorted by their Ranking. For example, in the American Championship, we have 5 groups of 6 teams. The first positions of each group are filled by the top 5 teams based on their Ranking. Then the second position can be filled by teams 6 to 10, third position by teams 11 to 15 etc.During our live draw, we work through all groups, until all pots have been emptied and all groups populated.

World Cup draw

The team ranking from the current season will determine the seed of that team in the World Cup draw. There are 16 groups in the World Cup first round, and the first team for each group is picked automatically. The top ranked European team from the Continental Championships (EU#1 in the table below) will always be the first team picked for Group 1, and the team ranked 8 from the Americas will always be the first team picked in Group 16.

Once one team has been assigned to each group, all other teams are picked using a live draw. The ranking from the continental championship is still very important, but instead of being assigned directly to a group, teams are put into draw pots. If we keep looking at the table below, in the column for “Team 2”, four teams will be put in the first draw pot. These are the teams ranked 8 in Africa, 7 in Africa, 6 in Africa and 5 in Africa. Out of this pot they are assigned as the second team to Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, as decided by the draw. 4 new teams are entered into the second draw pot and drawn for Groups 5, 6, 7 and 8. This process continues until all 6 teams have been chosen for all 16 groups.

The system is broadly deterministic, making sure we can not get all the best teams from the strongest continents in the same group. But at the same time we wanted a random element, so that managers can not already during the continental championship determine how the various groups will look in the World Cup, as this could cause some team to lose games on purpose to get a better draw in the World Cup. It also makes the live draw much more fun.

EU: Europe
AME: America
AFR: Africa
ASO: Asia / Oceania
W: Wildcard slot

Elections

Elections are held at the beginning of the season, starting the two days after the World Cup final. Every second season you elect the national coach and every second season you elect the U21 coach. Each coach is elected for 2 seasons, ending his term about a week after the World Cup Final. Note that you will need to have played Hattrick for at least 1 season in order to be able to vote in the National Team elections.

The national team squad

The national coach picks up to 26 players (from teams with real owners), freely from those players with the right nationality. However, U21 players need to be at least 19 years old and National Team players at least 22 years old. Once picked, the coach can see the same data for the national team players as you do for your own team.

Each national team has their own formation experience and on the start of every continental championship and World Cup/Nations Cup, national coaches will have about a week to decide which 6 formations will have formidable experience, while the rest will start from poor. There are two selection periods: the first one is from the day the election ends up to the Team Spirit and Team Confidence reset day before the first match for continental championships. The second one starts in Week 12 up to the Team Spirit and Team Confidence reset day at Week 13.Please note that NT/U21 teams' daily updates take place every day at 03:00 AM.

Having a national team player

If one of your players is on the national team, his ability to play for your team will be unaffected. National games and club games are played on separate days, so you can always use him. Matches for the national team will not give your player any training, however, he does run the risk of being injured while playing for the national team.

If your player gets to play a match with the national team there are several benefits for your club:

- You will get a salary reduction of 33% or 40% of the player's salary, depending on whether he is playing in a foreign team or his home country respectively.

- The player gains a lot of experience. The amount of experience they get varies in the match type and in descending order we have the Semi Final and Final of the World cup, the World Cup matches, the continental Quarter, Semi and Finals. The continental championship matches, the Nations Cup and finally the national team friendlies.

- If a player gets injured and has to leave the field in a match for his national team, the club will get a compensation amounting to 100% of his base salary times the estimated number of weeks the injury is expected to last. This is in addition to the regular salary reduction.

There are no injuries in national team friendly matches.

Note that you are expected not to undermine national teams through sabotaging your national team player(s). The National Team Administrators, as a last resort, have the discretion to release players to the transfer market in the event of sabotage.

World Cup Schedule - Season 1

World Cup Schedule - Season 2