Komunitatea » Hattrick Prentsa

Miracle on the field

Egilea: carpet87

Pakistan has truly given us a true underdog story that we can all somehow relate to. It brings back stories like South Korea making the semi finals of the World Cup in 2002, or Leicester City winning the premier league against all odds. What could a country of 82 active users actually do? We dive deep into how Pakistan made it through a brutal qualifying campaign and how we managed to cope against all odds and expectations.

If we were to ask the good people of Hattrick if a country with 82 active users could qualify for the world cup many would laugh or nod in disbelief. After a grueling campaign and 13 games already played, Pakistan was facing a must win game. A win and only a win in the final game would do it while being faced with a MOTS against the mighty Czech Republic. Imagine your tournament life depended on one final game and all hangs in the balance. It was make it or break it for team Pakistan. Either Pakistan would go on to etch their name in history or be just another team who failed to qualify and never to be remembered. Pakistan needed a miracle. Well I’m here to give you the good news. We finally did it! It was an impossible mission. We will forever remember the date: 27-07-2018 for the miracle on the field!

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the man of the hour, the greatest Pakistani user, the 10-time Pakistan Premier league champion Mazen697 (10512826). We will look into how he was able to guide Pakistan to the qualifiers against all odds:

1. Hello, first of all many, many congratulations on qualifying Pakistan for the first time in their history to the world cup. Please introduce yourself to the Hattrick community.

My name is Mazen, aged 27. I’m a Civil Engineer and a Writer. Football has been my life long passion and for the longest time, I wanted to become a footballer but unfortunately wasn’t able to do so. I found Hattrick in 2010 and since then have been hooked to it.

2. We all know the expectations and the pressure was always high in our community to deliver us a good campaign in lieu of past failures, how did you cope with the pressure and why did you choose to nominate yourself as the NT coach?

If you’re doing the best that you can and give it your all, then you don’t feel a lot of pressure. I never get that much backlash for my tactics due to belonging to a small community, and I know that the expectations aren’t that high with us. Having just 82 active users, we are always considered underdogs. I use that to my advantage and show my opponents how strong our team has become despite the setbacks. I nominated myself for the NT coach due to lack of better options and now that I've gained much experience in managing Pakistan NT, I'll keep on doing it for many more seasons.

3. You were basically a one-man army, no scouts to help, and tremendous burden on your hattrick team. How did you manage to build a strong foundation and team doing it alone?

When I became the U-20 coach of Pakistan for one season, I had scouts to help me out. But even then I used to double check everything. On becoming NT coach, I decided to go alone this time so that I’m sure that everything gets done perfectly. It took me one season to get everything sorted out. And since then, I’ve made sure that everything is in order for both the present and the future. I’ve literally scouted almost every Pakistani player available who can be interesting for the NT and made sure they are getting properly trained and have sent hundreds of HT-mails getting in touch with the owners. This is continuous work and I keep updating lists of 30-50 best players available for each position and selecting only the best players to represent Pakistan.

4. What made you decide to abandon your team and take the role of NT- Pakistan? It must have been a hard decision to sacrifice personal glory for the national team.

It was a hard decision, but I knew it was time. I had already won the topmost league 10 times and the cup once as well. I wanted to go for Masters but my team was getting older day by day and once I became the NT coach, I decided to give up on my team and focus all my energies towards Pakistan NT. As I’m the coach of my own country, quite a bit of patriotism is also involved, and I enjoy doing all the hard work to make a name for Pakistan in the Hattrick community. I have turned my main team into a farm for training and saving NT players. I've spent many millions trying to save some important players, sometimes buying double the price of transfer compare and then selling them to trainers cheaply.

5. What were your expectations of the current campaign? Based on the players you had on the roster, did you think you would be able to qualify?

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That’s my motto. Our squad was pretty strong but we don’t have the depth available that other teams have in their squads. If our top player is out of form, we won’t have a similar player to take his place and have to suffice with a lower skilled player. I am countering this problem by increasing our bench strength and preparing great backup players. My aim is always to qualify. When the group was announced, my expectation was that we’ll finish 3rd/4th but with some luck, we can go all the way. And that’s what we did.

6. After a lightning start to the campaign, we went through a bit of a slump. What were some key battles/matches that propelled us to qualify? What were some results that needed to happen and what were the games we needed to win?

The 3rd last match against Denmark which we won by just 1 goal. And the last match against Czech in a do or die situation. Both teams are powerhouses of Hattrick and winning against them in crucial moments guaranteed our qualification. We had some setbacks in the beginning, like losing 3-0 to Costa Rica in a match that we should have won comfortably. But we overcame them, and I managed our TS in a way that gave us the freedom to use MOTS against Denmark and Czech at the end. Most people will think that we got lucky qualifying from a nation which has just 82 active users, but according to the replays, we were topping the group after 10 matches. We did get lucky in the final matches but it was more hard work, determination and strategy than luck which gave us our first ever qualification.

7. Tell me about what was going on in your mind heading into the last must win game against Czech Republic. Were you expecting us to win? What was your thinking behind the lineup?

We needed to win, there wasn’t any other way to qualify. But our TC and TS was in very bad shape having lost 3-0 the previous week and using MOTS the week before that. Czech had the better squad, better TS and better TC. They had already qualified so I was expecting them to PIC. But when I saw the initial line up and their MOTS, I knew there is no chance that we would win. But thankfully, luck game for our aid when it mattered the most and we got the crucial victory.

8. What does the future hold for you? Will you run for re-election?

Definitely, I still have the same passion for the game that I had at the start and as long as I have that passion, I will keep running for the coach of Pakistan NT.

9. Will the team be pretty much the same going into the new campaign or are you looking to add some fresh blood to the roster?

We had a squad ranging from 27 to 34. I only choose the best players available for the qualification campaign, irrespective of their age. So, if a 28yo player gives me better ratings than a 32 yo one, I would choose the 28yo and vice versa. I think we would have a very strong squad in the next campaign as most players would be at their peak before they start losing skills.

10. Although you had no help as other countries would have, would you like to thank anybody? Previous NT/U20 coaches, trainers or mentors?

First of all, I would thank Scarface, our ex NT/U-20 coach of many seasons who laid the foundation of getting Pakistan National teams into a good track and almost qualifying many times. I would also thank Sane_ch (Our U-20 coach) whose ideas I often take regarding lineups, he’s doing a great job as our U-20 coach and making sure he’s sending really well-trained players for me to take over. I would also thank all our trainers who are our biggest assets and some individuals like Alex, Dattino, Fantazik, Terris, Bagolyj, Gopeter etc who always give motivation and advice in the forum.

11. We were knocked out in the 1st round of the world cup by an obscure rule: Standings in the qualification rounds as Oman had better points margin in the qualifying campaign than us. Were you heartbroken/angry/happy/sad? Or did our luck run out?

I was going through a bundle of emotions. Happy seeing the initial ratings of both matches, knowing that they’ll be enough to qualify us to next round. Anxiety at half time, seeing how the results weren’t going our way. Depression when Cuba scored against us in the 85th minute. Nervous when we scored the equalizer 3 minutes later and got the chance to qualify again. Jubilant when I saw that we’re at 2nd place after playing 3 matches. And finally, heartbroken when after 5 minutes, we demoted to 3rd and Oman went up to 2nd in our place. I was dumbfounded and kept staring at the screen in disbelief. So close yet so far. But still, we remained unbeaten in the World cup against 3 very strong teams.

12. Lastly, in your opinion, where can Pakistan go from here? Would you like to see more community involvement, more foreign coaches to help Pakistan grow, more trainers?

I would like to see everything you’ve mentioned and much more, but I don’t think our community involvement will increase. I will, however, keep managing our NT to the best of my abilities and keep trying my best to taking Pakistan the new heights. We already reached top 20 for the first time, I’m aiming for top 10 next.

World Cup group phase

Heading into the world cup for the first time in our history and after the success of the qualification campaign, Mazen tried his best to have the best players available with the best form/stamina and included them into the group phase round on the world cup. Unfortunately, the team had some really bad form and stamina updates. We were the 3rd best team heading into the group and we were facing an improbably task of qualifying. The first two games were going to be hard, so we gave it our best shot knowing we could possibly win against Cuba. We got two hard fought draws thanks to some good fortune from the match engine.

The last game against Cuba was a must win for Pakistan or hope Oman lost/draw their final game against Georgia. We were joint 2nd place with Oman on goal difference and same points. It was very evident Cuba was going to counter attack with some good wing attacks on either side, so Mazen gave us a very good formation and tactics with a 3-5-2 formation. Cuba led the game after an inexperienced event occurred for Pakistan and some smart changes were made towards the end of the game and Pakistan were able to get an equalizer on the 88th minute mark. The ending was another draw which meant Pakistan were level on points with Oman with the same goal difference.

There was lots of confusion on the board as to who would go through but much like the actual world cup in Russia 2018 where Senegal got eliminated by fair play rules, there was an obscure rule in Hattrick, that in the event of an unlikely tie where two teams were level on points, win/draw/loss and goal difference, the team to go through would be the one who had the most points in the group qualifications phase.
So, Oman made it through as they had 32 points against our 27 points. What heartbreak!

With this result, Pakistan remains unbeaten in the world cup which is a big consolation prize for a team with 82 active users! We can take some pride going forward and with the best coach at the helm of Pakistan, things are looking even more brighter than ever. Pakistan now sits at 19th position in the national team ranking in Hattrick which is an amazing feat and hopefully we can hit top 10 in the future.