"Hattrick" - you can easily play this game for ten or twenty years

David Lee

22.2.2024

Translation: machine translated

I played the online football manager game "Hattrick" for ten years. Then I took a break for ten years. I've been back in the game for a good year now. A tribute to the eternal online game.

In 2003, I signed up for "Hattrick". A free online game that I found out about from colleagues. The game is about managing a football club. You buy and sell players, train them, make a line-up, expand the stadium, promote young talent, sign contracts with sponsors and write press releases. The game is predominantly text-based, with only very rudimentary graphics - in the form of player faces, for example.

The first game of my club takes place on 14 June 2003. Although the performance in midfield is categorised as "catastrophic" by experts, we win 6:1. The first goal is scored by a player named Manuel Habenichts after just seven minutes.

At the time, I didn't realise that "Hattrick" would change my life.

But for the next ten years, I spend an absurd amount of time playing this game. It's in real time, there are always league games on Saturdays. I follow them live - in other words, I watch as new text modules gradually trickle into the match report. Even that doesn't always work, as the "Hattrick" servers are often overloaded.

I'm losing my grip on the ground

I talk about "my fans" without an ironic undertone - but I only mean the virtual fans of my virtual club. When I'm on holiday, my biggest worry is that I won't be able to find an internet café to enter the line-up for the next league game. At home, I sometimes set my alarm clock to 3.30 a.m. to buy an interesting player from the Dominican Republic on the transfer market. The purchase works like an online auction - with a deadline.

I'm not just drawn in by the game itself, but also by the Community. At the beginning of my career as a club manager, there was no Facebook or mobile internet and the opportunities to exchange information online were limited. But "Hattrick" is already something of a social media platform. After three or four years at the latest, I usually no longer log in to manage my club, but to exchange ideas with other people in the forum. More and more often about things that have nothing to do with "Hattrick". I get to know new people, some of whom I meet regularly in real life. There are two big football tournaments in Switzerland, consisting of teams made up entirely of Hattrick players. Unfortunately, I don't have to use the female form at this point, it's a male-dominated affair.

Selicious fascination

I've been playing "Hattrick" again for a good year now. Because the game still exists. Created in Sweden in 1997, it is one of the oldest online games ever, even older than Google. So it's not surprising that it's text-based.

The golden age of the online classic is long gone. There are significantly fewer players than in the noughties and they are also less active. However, "Hattrick" has maintained a stable number of around 200,000 users for over five years. Some managers have never stopped and have been managing the same club for over twenty years. Others come back after a break, like me. The game is free, but the majority of users pay an annual article in return for additional features such as detailed statistics. The future of the game does not appear to be in jeopardy and it is still being developed further.

How is this possible?

Like a houseplant

"Hattrick" is an extremely slow and long-term game. A friend of mine compared it to a houseplant. You have to water it from time to time, maybe fertilise it or repot it, but first and foremost you need patience: the plant doesn't grow any faster if you pull on it. It's the same with the football club you build up over the years. There's only so much you can do. Excessive activism, for example in the transfer market, can even be harmful.

Players get better every week through training - but only a little bit and only if they have played in the right position. As they get older, their ability to learn decreases and at some point they even get worse. In addition, injuries heal slowly or not at all. This is where it is important to bring on young talent or buy them in good time.

Hattrick exudes a charm all of its own. It was and is a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. This ranges from comic-like player faces to humorous match reports and completely crazy fans. In my opinion, this also includes the high random component, which is a thorn in the side of many ambitious players.

The way Hattrick comes across encourages many players to make jokes. There are many opportunities for this. Some live out their creative talent by constantly designing new logos, others engage in verbal battles via press releases. You can give your stadium and fan club funny names that are easily recognisable. Unfortunately, none of this is used as intensively today.

Exhausting yourself to the limit

Typical for "Hattrick" is that managers always manage to find new sides to the game and keep it interesting. They try out how far they can go with a team that plays without a midfield, a forward line or a defence. With a team made up of all old players or all players called "Polenböller". I myself have bought several players with my own name, even though they were useless.

With the tactic of playing without defence, I was frighteningly successful. I made it into the second-highest league - which meant I was at times one of the top 40 out of 40,000 players in Switzerland at the time. The tactics I used were labelled "pig tactics" because many managers saw them as cheaply exploiting a weakness in the game's design. It is no longer possible in this form today.

My favourite example of a hat-trick fun project is Argentina's record-breaking player Pedro "Apache" Zurita. He is 85 years old and still scores multiple goals in every game. On 13 October 2023, at the age of 83, the old warrior came on in the final minute of the World Cup final, which Argentina went on to win. Zurita is a living legend: Over 1600 competitive goals, 38-time top scorer, 255-time international - he holds all the records you can think of.

For a player over 40, an injury means the end of his career, as he never recovers from it. It takes a huge effort to make Zurita's endless career possible. Not only does his own club have to minimise the risk of injury, but so do all his opponents. Zurita plays in a league in which all opponents are hand-picked. Each player has a character that determines whether or not he is willing to commit brutal fouls. Zurita's opponents are all "introverts", i.e. they are highly unlikely to commit a foul that could injure the former star. Nevertheless, it will probably happen at some point.

Difficult for new users

Originally, "Hattrick" was easy to understand straight away. It was a simple game, at least on the surface. The underlying mechanisms - such as how the match engine works - had to be explored first. That was exciting.

But after a few years, everyone knew everything important. The game had to become more complex in order to keep long-time managers interested. The developers succeeded in doing this: Today, the game is much more interesting and multi-faceted than it was at the beginning. At the same time, however, it has become confusing and difficult for newcomers - it probably puts them off. My impression is that the vast majority of people who still sign up today are not real beginners, but newcomers like me.

After a good year, I'm still enjoying the game, even if I still don't stand a chance against the teams that have been playing for much longer. I'm happy about something else: my self-trained goalkeeper has surprisingly made it into the Senegal U21 national team.

David Lee

Senior Editor

David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.ch

My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.

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