Great Job Guys

Keep up the good work.

Best of luck to everyone in the new season.

Three cheers again

for Scott and Jeff for all of their effort in organizing the B-Cup and making it so much fun.

Best of luck to everyone for the new league season, especially to those of us who have promoted and are facing the prospect of getting smacked around.

I would wish you all luck in your domestic cup competitions as well, but the truth is that the sooner we all lose there, the sooner we can get back to the real competition here!

Final Update for Season XXI

I have finished the stats and awards pages so please go check out if your team/player has won an award ;)

Sadly I have not been able to include all the stats (as promised last week), MS Publisher couldn't handle them all :P So yellow cards and goals have had to be curbed slightly... maybe next season I will have sorted out a better way of doing the stats (again ;))

BrookStats will, hopefully, recieve some development and improvement for next season... they are still very labour intensive at the moment... but when they are finished then I think you will like the results ;)

All that is left to do is update any match reports from Scott... this will be done as soon as poss (then I get a break for a few weeks... YAY! ;))

Congrats To Le Tigres

Congrats to the Tigers and their amazing run. And congrats to Delta who gave me too much to handle on my own pitch for the Losers win. As a full-fledged member of Das Bklyn Cup now, you will be hearing more from the Brooklyn Wind. We are nothing here in Brooklyn if not verbose.

Thanks to everyone though I'm still waiting for the weeks 6-7 recaps from Scotty.

See you guys in a few weeks and good luck next season. (Esp. to Scott and Bpyd who are going to get KILLED.)
Cheers,
Sic
The Brooklyn Wind

congrats!

Congratulations to the Tigers for winning the Cup! Nicely done! Also Congrats to Delta for winning the Das Losers Invitational. I also have to say a job well done to Jeff for making the Brooklyn Cup what it is today. With stats galore it makes watching ESPN like watching grass grow. As usual Scott's recaps kept you up to date with all the recent action in a way that makes Chris Berman seem like he's reporting on that growing grass. All in all I have to say thank you for your guy's hard work and I look forward to the next fight for the cup.

p.s. I would be remiss if I didn't mention our contributing beat reporter, Mr Michael Boyd. Hopefully there will be more to come from him in future recaps.

It Had To Happen!

Okay okay... so I lost! :P

CongRatz to Tigers for a superb Brooklyn Cup competition... they are clearly head and shoulders above the rest of us and deserved the win tonight.

All I can really say is "I shall return!"

See ya in season XXII ;)

Thanks to all teams for, once again, making the Brooklyn Cup the best competition in the game... and certainly the reason why I have kept playing Hattrick with such enthusiasm for the last year.

Many of us are now approaching our first anniversary of playing in Hattrick and I, for one, can say, with total honesty, that it has been a superbly enjoyable year... you guys have been a large part of that for me.

Cheers to you all!

Great Run Ratz

Now, everyone tune into match no. 14124434, The Bklyn Wind vs Delta at the newly named Last Exit.
It's a loser's match for the ages. Something that all losers will talk about for years to come.

Nobody's gonna break the wind tonight.

Sic

Congrats to the Tigers - Holders of the Cup.

The King is dead.

Long live the King.

1-1 after 1

Shaping up to be a monster final

::: 3rd place'll do me fine :::

Thanks to Brookyn for such a good game.

And thanks to you all, in this, what surely has been the best BC season to boot! (not least because of my finish!);))

Yes, it's been fun, and Dan, you did well son.

Come on Tigers ;)))

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa................

Trophy going to Sweden?

Don't make me laff! ;)

I have played (and beaten) Swedish teams that everyone thought were going to walk the game!

Your lads ain't gonna be any different... big talk, small skills!

Let's get it on!

Go Ratz! ;D

I may actually be the next champion

Hello there
I so your posting Jeff, fortunately I don't have a qualification game and will be playing all my best players (except Tomas Ljungby). I have even bought two players to make sure that theres gonna be a champion in sweden.

May the best team win and good luck in your qualification.

Changes done

I have updated the name of your team Sic... although you wont see any diff on this site until after the finals games ;)

As for "laying down for the Tigers" I have no intention of laying down! It is true that I will not be able to play all my first teamers against Tigers on wednesday as I have an important qualifier but I will still be trying to win... anyways it won't take much to beat those pussy cats ;P

BenditinBrooklyn Becomes The Brooklyn Wind

My team's name has changed from BenditinBrooklyn to The Brooklyn Wind. FYI. Nothing else has changed about the team. We are poised to take Delta for the Losers Championship though he is slyly asking that I come travel to to his stadium eventhough I am higher seed. We'll see about that.......

I'd say it will be the match to watch this week since it seems everyone is laying down for the Tigers......

Sic

Update

I have put all this weeks results on the finals page and also included all the remaining fixtures to be played in next weeks finals! (I hope that I have them all correct ;))

I have also updated the Season XXI stats. As next week is the final Season XXI stats then I will be including every single bit of info... so be prepared for a huge sheet ;)

Incidentally... If anyone wants their teams stats (as I have compiled them) then please let me know and I will email them all to you ;) (Or I could just send you the entire excell file if you prefer).

Best of luck to all teams still playing in a final next week... its a shame half of us have to lose :P

Losers Invitational

The final is between BenditinBrooklyn and Rasaritul Delta, with Bendit winning in a walkover as a result of Idali's scheduling outside the tournament. So it goes. Bendit is the home team, and best of luck to both sides in what is sure to be a barnburner.

Don't You Hate It When That Happens?

I read the skill as Counterattack... I wrote it as counterattack... in my own head I was describing counterattack... but it came out as blasted Pressing!!

You know... being dashedly handsome and brilliantly talented can sometimes have its drawbacks... I can be incredibly dumb :P

C'est la vie... 2 outta three aint bad ;P

FINAL

To nobody's surprise (least of all my own), Brooklyn Tigers manhandled their US namesake 5-0 this evening to set up a Brooklyn International Cup final between said Tigers and our own Dirty Ratz. Tigers will be the home side.

Also, this sets up the 3rd place game with System hosting my Brooklyn FC side next week.

I'll post the Losers Invitational final later after the Bendit/Idali match tonight.


And, re: the last couple of posts, our Ratty friend is certainly describing Pressing skill, not CA. CA is determined by the defending and passing skills of your backline only.

Check the following site for a useful tool:

Counter attacking info

Edited by Jeff: Made the link clickable ;)

Quick Answer - Disagree

To the best of my knowledge you have described 'Pressing'.

'CA' is Strong defence with high Passing and a strong attack BUT you will only be able to use it if your midfield is weaker than your opponent. If not I have been winning games by mistake !

Quick answer...

No!........ ;)

Oh all right I will add more :P

Counter Attack 'skill' depends on the defence skills of each and every player on your squad... the higher the better.

It also depends on stamina (a little less than defence) as without high stamina your team will suffer in the second half (a bit like playmaking and inner mids)

Finally for every 'powerful' player you play the contribution they make (depending on defence/stamina) is doubled!

Hope this is of some use to you ;)

nice job

As usuall, nice job on the match reports Scott. And a big thumbs up to our new beat writer, Mr. Michael Boyd. Well done!

I'd like to add a match report for my match yesterday if you guys don't mind.

Rasaritul Delta 2 - 0 Chocolate Thunder FC

We suck!


Thank you very much for your time.
Good luck in your next matches everyone.


p.s. A quick question. Is the effectiveness of the tactic you choose based on how much you use that tactic?

Tom

Update

I have added the results from one of the semis (>;-P) and also the Quarter Finals match reports!!!

This week Scott is joined by our very own Mr M. Boyd who has volunteered to write one of the reports... gratz to them both for another entertaining read!

Say, what happened to week 6 and 7, Scott? ;P

Mr Shortall...

... was being a pain in the ass with all thos 'fingertip' saves... so I decided to get some of the boys to tap-dance on his hands ;)

We ain't called the Dirty Ratz fer nuttin ;P

Hrmmm... don't the Tigers have a half decent keeper we can jump on too? I wonder if he will be making an appearance next week if Scott doesn't manage to beat 'em? ;)

Shame that MacTire has finally been sold... tap-dancing on keepers hands is his specialty ;)

No comment.

Gary Shortall.

Nuff said.

THUGS!

And continuing the rep in the league, 3loc are proud to annound that once again, they are in the top 5 most violent teams for Series V according to Hatsats!

http://england.hatstats.info/division.php?level=5

Yay! For the second time this season. Lets just hope that the 3 reds I have against my first teamers don't mess up my first game NEXT season too much!

Cup Rules!

Well,

Tonight is the night, and the 3loc board aren't THAT hopeful what with our weak midfield rating at the weekend, but we'll do our damndest!

Best of luck to all other participants.

As for Dan....

Watch this space ;)))

Update

BrookStats have concluded for the season (I will create a summary page when time permits), but the Season Stats and finals pages have been updated. I am presently working on a new honours list page so the present one is a stop-gap version.

By the way our school was rated as 'Good and improving' by OFSTED, which in their language is flippin' fantastic ;)

Now it is the half term holiday... time to sort out my team properly ;)

I´m a Happy Semifinalist

Well then

Somebody had to be the first scoring a goal against the mighty tigers.
"But I care not" said Hannes the goalie "as long as the team wins I´m a happy camper".

Personal note:
even though I havent been as active in this or any other conference I must say that I have enjoyed very much reading all the comments on this site and being apart of this fantastic cup. especially the statistics and the game reviews, jolly good.
maybe I might be able to be more active in the future, I hope anyway.

Cheers to every one who make this cup what it is, and to ellwood for scoring a late goal to win the trophy.

Let the Bull of his leash...

Go to the matresses Mike. Send Scott a message. Send him a fish wrapped up in his keeper's jersey.

There's no such thing as a coincidence.

Apology

Sorry about Brett's comments guys, he is obviously still a little bit delicate after not being able to get it up with some moose he pulled after he had downed his 3 pints of beer shandy the other night!!!

As far as the MSN thing goes then i think its the best idea you have had since you put your pet guinea pig in the microwave to dry him out after he had escaped from his pen one wet afternoon.

Press Announcement

Hope you boys like my latest press announcement. I had to go back to the archives for that one. Seemed only fitting for such an excellent match, even though I lost....

fRIENDLY

cAN i go ahead and schedule a friendly, or am I still a loser?

MSN

Yes, thanks for that Mr Head. I'm sure you have won an award for drinking beer before judging by that gut you're showing off...

"Other people have a 6-pack... I have a Keg!" He says. ;))))

On another note people,

Would anyone feel it a viable option/want to get onto MSN Messenger, so we can share match banter?

For those of you without it, it's available freely from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d83d02b2-c82c-4ba1-aec2-584aabb057eb&displaylang=en

So... who's in!?!?!?

Thank you speech

TO ALL my fans, the club, the players of Ellwood AFC, my Mammy and Daddy,my darling girlfriend and of course Bernard the Sheep and his family and last but not least all my friends from the Brooklyn cup.......Thank you for this fantastic award, it has always been my dream to actually win the "Boyd Beer Challenge" and i now feel my life is almost complete. It has been a long hard road to glory with much blood shed and beer drunk. Many a night i have woken in my sheeps pen just wondering if i had the will to carry on..(shagging flossy that is). Unfortunately i can not be there with you now guys to collect my award but i know one day the Brooklyn Cup, this fantastic tournament, will bring us all together.

Once again thanks and lets not forget Mister Cecil Crumpton, bought in at the last minute due to injury, scorer of that 40 yard screamer....whoopee!

Shit...help....bye

Losers Invitational

BenditinBrooklyn v. Idali
Rasaritul Delta v. Chocolate Thunder

Semifinals

The semifinal matchups are as follows:

Brooklyn Tigers v. Brooklyn FC
System v. Dirty Ratz


The 5th-8th tournament is as follows:

Bonafide v. Quakes
Avalanche v. Ellwood

The winners of these matches play each other in the final; the losers play in the consolation match. Congratulations to the semifinalists. What a set of matches.

I agree

God I love this tournament...

Amen to that, Brother ;)

Dan Wins! (sort of...)

And the winner of the Boyd Beer challenge is: Dan and the fighting lads of Ellwood who, although losing valiantly 3-1 to Tigers on the road, finally put one in the net against Tigers after 8 straight clean sheets.

Well done Dan. Hopefully we will see you in Brooklyn soon (with or without sheep) to collect your prize.

And isn't it nice to have Tom back, active and talking trash?

God I love this tournament...

Lets get it on!

ok all you losers out there, I'm out to become the biggest loser of them all. With my win yesterday I am one step closer to my goal. It's been a whole season in the making and nobody better get in the way of my dreams.


I love the smell of trash talking in the morning!

Bye

See you next season for hopefully a whole cup comp !

::: One down :::

Who's next?

Here's to no injuries this weekend, will need my guys for the semi's.

Pushing it with a few again what with some playing 3 or 4 in a row..... :p

Update

Incase you guys hadn't noticed I have already updated the group tables, fixtures, BrookStats and season stats.

I have also updated the Finals Fixtures page... which now has room for both the Brooky Cup and the Losers Invitational.

I will update it for the Semis and finals as we reach them.

Good luck :)

We did good

Guys, go check out the USA conference. Our own Head_Rat received a duly deserved Honorable Mention in the Most Amicable Owner Awards, ahead, might I add, of two teams in the USA Major Leagues who have been in HT since the beginning of time.

Nice work and thanks for supporting our Rat.

SJS

History will be made!

Well folks... for the first time in Brooky Cup history there is not going to be a Ratz-Avs Final!

It's the end of our dominance over this comp Claus ;'/ Time for others to share in the glory that is the Brooky Cup!

Best of luck to everyone... I will sort out the stats when I get back from work tonight ;)

I can't wait for that Bonafide-Brooklyn matchup next week....thanks guys for doing all this work.
Just wait till next year, Bendit will be a force.........
Cheers,
Sic

Finals Fixtures

An extraordinarily close race decided the 2/3 slots in Groups A and B--I'll get into it later--and we are left with the following fixtures:

System (1A) v. Quakes (4B)
Tigers (1B) v. Ellwood (4A)
Ratz (2A) v. Avalanche (3B)
Bonafide (2B) v. Brooklyn (3A)

As mentioned before, ALL MATCHES ARE CUP RULES. Considering I screwed that up last year, I shouldn't be the one to talk about it.....

Playoff seeding will be determined by the following order (based on regular-season record and tiebreakers):

Tigers 19 pts
System 18 pts
Ratz 18 pts
BFC 18 pts
Bonafide 16 pts
Avalanche 16 pts
Ellwood 12 pts
Quakes 9 pts

We will re-seed every round, with the highest-seeded team left remaining playing the lowest-seeded team left remaining. The higher seed in the match will be the home team. Accordingly, teams from the same Group can play each other in the semifinals.

This is also a knock-out event, but I will set up placing tournaments for the losing teams; the 4 teams knocked out of the QF will play for 5th-8th place, and the two losers of the semifinals will play for 3rd. So check back no matter what your result.

Here we go.....

Losers Invitational

Home teams listed first:
Bendit v. Presidents
Maidstone v. Thunder
Delta v. Saltopus
Kings County v. Idali


This is a knock-out event from here on out, so if you win, check back here to see what your next week's schedule is. Also, make sure that ALL MATCHES ARE CUP RULES, since we cannot accomodate any draws this season.

I'll post the Finals fixtures later.

Back

Now that I've spent my last couple of days getting rid of more viruses than Britney Spears' doctor, I'm finally back on-line. After tonight's matches in USA, the seedings for both the playoffs and Losers' Invitational will be posted, so check back here. Also, Claus, can you check with Idali to make sure she's in for the Losers? We'll find someone else if she can't.

Also, notice the tournament will not be called the DAS losers invitational, since there will be no DAS in it; our own Das Earthquakes, a team who had never so much as won a cup match in 2 seasons, actually qualified for the final round in Group B play this week after Delta and Bendit could only manage draws in their final matches. WELL DONE, Matt.

" I would like to take this opportunity to thank..."

Thanks Big J.

From the Worcester Public Library:

"Thanks to all the coaching staff and the board, thanks to my friends and family for all their support, thanks to Guiness, for making a dman good pint, and thanks to God, who, on the 8th day, made Hattrick."

I think I've stuffed my chance to win my league now, so will try and console myself with the BC. Think I may find it tough though though if I end up playing a few of those teams out there in the final! But I'm jumping the gun here, have to make it there first!

Best wishes all.

Congratz...

... to Brett for winning group A in real style... nice one m8 ;)

Best of luck in the knockout stage too... he is now England's best hope for the trophy ;)

Mercy Mission!

Folks we have a situation... Scott has lost all ability to use his internet browser... it is deader than a very dead thing!

He has asked me to ensure you all have his email address:

scottsantandrea@mindspring.com

He is feeling pretty cut off and isolated so if you get a spare mo then I am sure he would appreciate a little message from you all ;)

I have made it so that all published notes on here go directly to his email so he should see any new posts here too ;)

Lets help out our glorious leader ;D

Agree

I agree, well done to all those who have had such a good season. Reckon if we could play other feds with our best 11 we would kick their arse!! Pity it cant be done.

As for me, my season has fallen apart somewhat but maybe i have learned a lesson or two.....dont sell all your team and buy a load of foreigners!! Oh well, build for next season and i am still in with a shot of the BC but dont like my chances with a game against the mighty "Ratz" and then a quarter final tie against the "purring pussies" raaaaa!

Rocking the Leagues

We are obviously approaching the end of the league season, and I thought I would take a moment to make one point that some of you may have noticed and perhaps others have not. This is especially gratifying for those of us who have been in this competition from the start, because we all started playing HT at about the same time as well. The following is a short table which shows the position of each B-Cup team in it's regular series as of today. Bear in mind the following: (a) Ratz and Maidstone play in the same series in England, and are currently ranked 1-2, (b) as we know, Tom has been distracted this season but won his series last year and promoted into a tough series, (c) Ellwood won its series and promoted last season and (d) System spent significant time at #1 in its series this season and is still in the hunt. Given the number of clubs in our crew that will promote soon, who knows if we will ever see this sort of convergence of series strength again.

First Place:
Bajen Avs
Bonafide
Brooklyn FC
Delta
Dirty Ratz
Presidents
Sea Lane
Tigers

Second Place:
Maidstone Reunited
System 3loc

Third Place:
BenditinBrooklyn
Ellwood
Saltopus

Fourth Place:
Kings County United

Below:
Chocolate Thunder
Das Quakes
Idali