Subject: I.1

Here ya go Playoff History
Season Winner Runner-up
1 Team USA InterMelon
2 Asshai SB Mojo Xpress
3 Erratic Emus Mojo Xpress
4 Mojo Xpress InterMelon
5 Mojo Xpress Erratic Emus
6 Covington Rowdies Erratic Emus
7 Mojo Xpress Covington Rowdies
8 Covington Rowdies Mojo Xpress
9 Covington Rowdies Mojo Xpress
10 Mojo Xpress Erratic Emus
11 Mojo Xpress Erratic Emus
12 Mojo Xpress Orlando Generals
13 Cactus HC Cataclysm
14 Doppelgangers Orlando Generals
Titles
Mojo Xpress (4), (5), (7), (10), (11), (12)
Covington Rowdies (6), (8), (9)
Team USA (1)
Asshai Shadow Babies (2)
Erratic Emus (3)
Cactus HC (13)
Doppelgangers (14)

League Titles
Season Winner Runner-up
1 Team USA (68) Cataclysm (-2)
2 Asshai SB (75) Mojo Xpress (-4)
3 InterMelon (81) Mojo Xpress (-8)
4 Erratic Emus (71) Mojo Xpress (0)
5 69'ers (86) Mojo Xpress (-2)
6 Mojo Xpress (81) Covington Rowdies (-4)
7 Mojo Xpress (87) Covington Rowdies (-7)
8 Mojo Xpress (88) Covington Rowdies (-13)
9 Covington Rowdies (86) Fighting Okra (-3)
10 Mojo Xpress (98) Fighting Okra (-15)
11 Mojo Xpress (93) Erratic Emus (-5)
12 Mojo Xpress (98) Cactus HC (-23)
13 Big fatty cats (81) Cataclysm (-1)
14 Doppelgangers (85) Orlando Generals (-5)
Titles
Mojo Xpress (6), (7), (8), (10), (11), (12)
Team USA (1)
Asshai Shadow Babies (2)
InterMelon (3)
Erratic Emus (4)
69'ers (5)
Covington Rowdies (9)
Big fatty cats (13)
Doppelgangers (14)

It's kinda depressing for me that I never managed to win a League title in handball. I lost pro pack during season 7 of a 10 season long term plan, missed many good players in the academy, and let my players stats get messed up by the time I had pro again in a couple seasons.

yep. it's a good strategy. I do something similar: the "win every game you can by as little as you can" strategy. I know there's teams that play the first half on low, conserving energy for the second half and the playoffs, but that's never been my style because you forgo so much in OTR and cash (from fans abandoning your home games because you "aren't trying".

In past years, I also leaned pretty heavily on 1-2 goalies and definitely noticed the falloff later in the season, so I was lucky to have 3 competitive goalies this season. Now that Russ is locked up for at least 3 more seasons, I'm actually pretty happy with my goaltending outlook as i feel as though by the time he's a UFA, he'll be looked at as less of a "starter" and less "valuable" than he was during this RFA, because he probably won't train very much over the next few seasons and will get outpaced by younger guys). The timing of his RFA actually sucks though, because I'm almost 100% that he'll be 2/6 CL in 8 days, and I'm sure his offers would've been much lower if that were the case during his bidding process.

It was a VERY difficult decision to keep him though. I've been on the fence about it for 2-3 seasons.

1) When he was 23, I told myself I would sell him at age 24 (because I figured that would be his last season at 4/6 CL). He inexplicably dropped to 3/6 CL at 24 though (after dropping from 5/6 to 4/6 just two seasons prior at 22). I didn't want to "sell him low," so I just held onto him.

2) When he was 25 (last season), i thought maybe i'd sell him so i wouldn't have to fend off RFA offers.
But then it looked to be in my best interest to finally advance to I.1 so figured I'd need him to be my starter for at least another season. So I held onto him.

3) Finally I told myself that if he received a 200 million RFA bid, that he'd get let go. Anything less than 100 million, i'd definitely keep him. Wouldn't you know it, he ended up with his RFA bid being right in the middle with a 160ish million bid. Yet again, not leaving me with a clear cut decision.
So since I still couldn't decide, I stuck with the status quo, and held onto him.

I think(?) keeping him is worth the cost. Maybe?
It's definitely a big, big cost. I could've earned ~88 million for letting him go, instead of paying roughly 60 million to keep him (a ~150 million swing). During the next 3 seasons, his salary will cost me another ~120 million total. That's like 270 million in opportunity cost... so I dunno... I'm still having doubts / regrets, still waffling. Even if I sold Copeland now (who was largely my insurance policy if I lost Russ to RFA), I wouldn't get anywhere close to 150 million for him (at least I don't think i would).

Tough.

This is why I don't like having "older" guys on my team. I don't like having to make these "no win" scenario sort of decisions.

Right now I'm paying my top 3 goalies almost a million $$ / day. We'll see how my sponsorship deals come in. Hopefully due to my success this season, they'll be good enough that the decision doesn't hurt too badly. I'm dubious though.

really? I thought you won a few titles in III or II?

I know what you mean about the "10 season long plan" though. This season was really the 1st, maybe 2nd season in which I've started reaping the rewards of the setup that I've been planning since basically day one of season one.

I'm hoping I can stay on top for a few more seasons before my costs get so exorbitat that it all comes crashing down. It's definitely been a a long patient waiting game for the last 2-3 calendar years.

oh i won a few in II and III but i was shooting for I

yeeeeeeeeeeep. Definitely not loving my chances for this season in the champions league division that I'm in lol.

ST.BITANGOK is the 3rd best team in the world by team strength (9th by OTR). Meanwhile, only 8 other teams in the world have more money in than one of my other competitors, [handball_team=10845]. The two remaining guys are also from pretty tough countries (Belarus and Croatia) and are very strong teams too.

Oh well... I'll give it my best. My best player is one of the best in the division, so maybe he can carry me a bit. I'm not holding my breath though... these teams have so much depth. They all seem to have an entire roster's full of players that are 1800 OR or better (I have 3 by comparison).

I probably have one of the youngest starting rosters of any division I.1 team in the world though, so I guess I'll just keep on keeping on with my long term plan, and eventually, hopefully I get there...

I do not think we will win enough to bump us up to 4 teams. But we should look and try

I remember playing against those 2 back in the day... fun stuff... well not really lol

yeah i mean I'll definitely try to employ some good strategy to snag some wins, but I think it'll absolutely come down to how much effort my opponents put into the international competition. If some of them just play all these matches on low energy, I think I'll have a real good shot at pulling some strategic upsets.

It's looking like my first opportunity for an upset victory will come in a few days when I play [handball_team=11564] on the road. He just started a training camp, so hopefully his team will be QUITE gimped compared to mine during our match.

Any time I have a chance to steal an away game against teams of this caliber is a HUGE help towards making it out of the qualifying round...

heh. well with the season ending, you should be getting some better finances / sponsorships now. Keep plugging away at your upgrades, and you'll be back to competing against them in no time.

hmmm... actually, after looking at [handball_team=11564] a bit more, now i don't know what to expect. He only has 2 guys on his roster who aren't either in training camp or on sale on the market.

So something will have to "give." Either his camp guys will skip camp to play in the early season games (which sucks for me, and silly for him, as he "wastes" his camp to some degree), or he'll add some new players from the market and use them (which is probably better for me, and probably smarter for him in the grand scheme of things).

Either way, i imagine he'd definitely be adding SOME players back onto his roster in the next few days...

It'll be interesting to see if he's going the "rebuilding" route and will add a bunch of younger guys, or if he'll add a bunch of seasoned veterans. The latter would probably be more expensive, but would make him even more dangerous when I play him again at home in a month.

Good luck! Champions League was very humbling for me...only got 1 win and frankly I didn't deserve that one.

Champion's league is a whole different animal, even compared to cup winner's cup I'd say. Champions league you are guaranteed to compete against the top .5% where as in Cup winners cup you play against the top 1-4%. the small difference in percentage equates to a massive difference in strength and OTR.