BuzzerBeater Forums

@BB-Charles:

I see your point about community involvement and agree that the community which involves more into the forums tend to be more successful. However, I believe that this is a cultural thing. The countries like Italy and China have people who like to spend time on forums and share ideas while the USA managers would prefer not to involve much in the forums. Therefore, I don't think anything particular which will attract forum/community involvement can be done. Of course, this may be a problem for NTs but I don't really have any solutions about this. The only advantage for the USA can be the number of users which even with a small percentage can produce some involvement. Another point is that as far as I know more involved countries use some teams just to produce NT players so they find voluntary managers, make them train potentially good guys and use them on the team so what we can do is just to look for these kinds of managers who can put team success in the 2nd place.

On the other hand, I don't really favor discussing tactics anywhere because it is the style of the manager and I think it shouldn't be shared before match. After the match it can be discussed in the forums, the manager can explain why the set of tactics was used etc. I also think having a different forum for discussing tactics will discourage people to involve. Another problem in this, to me, discussing tactics would confuse the manager. To conclude, I favor discussing tactics post-match.

@Cuzitt:
About your question about convincing manager to train 1 position, I don't think there is a set of way to do that. To be honest, with the current tactics system, I do believe it is more useful for teams to choose 2 pos. training in order to have a chance to train 5 guys in a week while trying to train 1 pos. there will be a problem (foul trouble etc.) which will prohibit the team to train 3 guys with full minutes. Therefore I need to be convinced to be able to convince others that 1 pos training is better for their team. :)
However, the thing I said above about trying to find managers to train guys just for NT would be more beneficial. This action of course can only be voluntary but we may be able to find some managers for this. I am planning to use forums to advertise in order to find teams like that.

About foreign managers, it will be hard to convince them with a 1 pos. training to be given to a USA player however I will be talking to the managers who own NT potential guys in order to find a way, especially listening to any suggestions they may have about it. Nevertheless, I don't believe anything can be done if they don't want to participate in USA NT success and must be understood.


Long post I know. I also know my English might suck in a few parts so I am sorry about it.

I think that with the possibilities of extra merchandise income for homegrown talent you are going to see a change in how players are bought on the market and trained. I have recently gotten an inquiry for one of my players from a team of his nationality who is willing to pay about 66% overmarket based on his nationality not his skills. We will see how much more people actually report getting for a homegrown but this should lead to increased enthusiasm for the draft.

China has been much more successful as a smaller nation, while in countries like Italy there's a lot more enthusiasm not just for the national team but even just in things like using the forums; there are more posts in BB Italia than in BB Global (English), and tens of times as many posts as in BB USA.



I can't help but think that the community activity and national team success are related.

American sports tend to power focus on league play. In our major sports we dont have pyramid promotion, minor league champs dont replace major league cellar dwellers. It is harder to get Americans intersted in international competition than it is outside of the USA. MLB teams are getting greedy with their superstars in the WBC. Here in America it is all about league play and championships, at least considerably more so than abroad. I am not saying ALL Americans care less about international sporting competition. I am saying overall and as a whole the American sports culture revolves around league play. When Spain and USA played in the last Olympics, I called my die-hard Lakers fan buddy and invited him over to watch the game. He said "just call me if Kobe gets hurt". He missed a good game and didnt really care.

I personally find the forums a bit dry for my taste. I have been told this by a few others as well. You are just as likely to get ignored, stomped, uninformative dismissal or closed thread as you are to get an informative response or continuation of discussion, especially for the newer user-those most suited to train NT players. Alienated on arrival. Light hearted or funny responses seem a bit shunned as well. Just my opinion. Sometimes I cringe when I click the forum link after posting in the forums. Not the most 'community oriented' environment.

I personally find the forums a bit dry for my taste. I have been told this by a few others as well. You are just as likely to get ignored, stomped, uninformative dismissal or closed thread as you are to get an informative response or continuation of discussion, especially for the newer user-those most suited to train NT players. Alienated on arrival. Light hearted or funny responses seem a bit shunned as well. Just my opinion. Sometimes I cringe when I click the forum link after posting in the forums. Not the most 'community oriented' environment.

Hello everyone, first off all if i sound patronizing in my response try not to feel patronized, although my english is near to fluent, is very difficult for non native english speaker to really accentuate what he is trying to say,so I hope u will take an effort in trying to understand what I mean.

Secondly,Im sorry for barging into the NT debate,however I read BBcharles comment about the community as a whole and though I would give u my opinion as a non american,because I think there are some very good things being said,and some things in ur country are very similar to the dutch.

I quoted the bit heathcoat says,because I totally agree with him.if u compare the tone in the general english forums to the many forums I am a member off in the hattrick community,i would at best rate the BB community to be friendly and when I am saying that i am trying very hard not to type unfriendly.I see many debates and try to participate in them and they end up being a "i know better than u" contest than being it a real debate.Sometimes u are totally being ignored or things u say are totally been taken out off contest.I know sometimes I get angry when another player for the umpt time tries to act like i am some kind off morron that has no clue at all,and I do apoligize for that.Especially to BBcharles to whom I wrote an angry message last week in frustration.I m just suprised that quite a few GMs also do this and I am not certain as to what their roles are,but in a way I feel they should try to guide the conversations a little more so that it stays more friendly and perhaps be more carefull as to what they say.(I most likely get killed for saying this, but I am sorry,as far as I know a GM is kind off a moderater for their country or something like that, please educate me if I am wrong)

Secondly I think alot off the problems come from the many different nationalities people have and the many different levels off english involved and the lack of trying to read between the lines and actually trying to understand what people say instead off reading it, not 100% understanding it and jumping the gun. I am sure there is no harm ment, but this is just the feeling I get when I read and use the forums.

Now to the other topic that I wanted to comment on.With regards to the americans loving their team sports.I think this is true.Just look at college sports,where else in the world do you have competitions where school kids compete and whole neighbourhoods support them?(might sound a bit degrading dont mean it like that,many off these school kids are probably alot better than most pro athletes else where around the globe).Let me try and explain what I mean.I am from holland and since I lived close to the border with Germany and my parents are from Vienna,I speak near fluent German and am quite interested in Germany as a country.If Holland wins something in a sport (only soccer is the exception),we barely celebrate it and hardly care.If you watch the players at the start off the game,the most players dont sing the national anthem.Look at the Germans,when they win something,even in the smallest sport possible,they are proud off it.I think the Chinese and Italians are like the Germans and the Americans are like the dutch.I would say the Americans are not as nationalistic as the germans, chinese and italians and perhaps this is a reason why they are less involved and care about the U21 and NT?

Well since no one is asking questions I'll lift a couple of the questions one sees in a thread like this in BB Italia and when the others have responded I'll take them up myself:

I think these are valid questions you posed to the election competition, but I believe the real question is already out there. You stated before that you are not interested in just the position but also the improvement of the program for the future. BB-Charles touched upon the issue of national participation and it's relevance to the program both in training and shape. I mentioned two reasons that may contribute to lack of interest in the NT and U21 in the USA. Other than making training recommendations and asking to keep players in better game shape, in what ways can a U21 or NT coach reach out to the American community? Any ideas or plans to increase USA's managers interest in the community once they do find the correct forum?

I believe this is an important aspect of leading a national squad that relies on the managers below them, and would be interested to hear any ideas on this subject from any of the candidates.