Subject: I.1

hey no problem mate. I'm just sad that you didn't start handball during the early days. It was a lot more dynamic and interesting.

managing the balance of being "good enough for, but not too good for" division II used to be much more interesting because it used to be full of actively managed teams.

Now, you should be able to pretty much automate it since division II is so dead. which is fine, because it's "easier" to implement now than ever... but i have to believe it will take more work to stay engaged.

i think your "happy place" may be managing one of the national teams, and using that to stay interested in ppm, while letting your team sort of passively grow in the background.

Indeed! I'm "learning the ropes" on USA's U21 team currently. It's been fun so far!

lol yep! the national teams are pretty fun. I know cap has been wanting to transition the U21 team to someone new for a few seasons now, so once you feel comfortable with it, I imagine he'd probably be fine with transitioning it to you.

I'm successfully doing the rebuild thing in basketball right now.

My trick is to play every regular season game on very high. This allows me to earn a 43-1 regular season record (this season) but then struggle to win against the few other good teams (who generally seem to want to return to I.1) in the playoffs. My OTR is chasing down 8th in the U.S. while in the second division, and I have nearly 1 billion saved (money seems to accrue especially fast in basketball) and nothing left to build (unless I want build the last 2 levels of my education facility). The sponsor type that pays for every win has been lucrative for me.

I have a bunch of prospects that can be competitive in division II while gaining experience earlier than they could while winning in division I. I'll earn some money off the ones I don't keep and should have enough money to fill in any holes/retain players once I'm ready to compete (when the prospects that I end up retaining are at the level/age of the top players in I.1).

Basketball is admittedly more competitive than handball.

It looks like I'm the 6th seed in the Cup Winner's Cup.

VERY NICE! Congrats! That's far better than i was ever able to do in international competition.

Thanks! I admittedly benefited from a relatively weak division with a dead team, a team whose second best player has ~1200 OR, and one more decent team that was very beatable. Hopefully I'll get advantageous matchups and advance far into the tournament. I'm also playing in the less competitive tournament than you did when you competed in the Champions' League.

Soccer's the only sport I've had any success (granted that it was only against the small countries in the Rest of the World category) on the international level (though I've participated 3 times in handball and basketball combined).

Actually, it looks like I'm the 3rd U.S. team to make the playoffs in an international handball tournament. The Erratic Emus made the quarterfinals of the Champions' League in season 6 and the Cunning Procrastinators made the round of 16 of the Cup Winner's Cup in season 4.

I have the 25th strongest team strength of the 32 remaining teams, but I play a beatable opponent in the first round on Monday.

I actually think that dead teams can make things a bit tougher sometimes, because you pretty much count on everyone beating them, and sometimes it comes down to goal differential deciding who advances (which is a shitty feeling). so good job either way.

and yeah, definitely good luck regardless! i imagine it'll start getting pretty tough pretty darn quick now that you're past the round robin phase..

It looks like I won today. In the next round, I believe I will face a better team, but one that is close enough that I have a chance (they have an advantage of 23 strength; one of my players was injured today, so that number should be closer to 20).

When listing past U.S. international handball successes, I forgot to include my Cup Winner's Cup round of 16 elimination in season 17, so this is actually my second trip to the round of 16.

well hopefully you make it further this time than last.

well poop. i managed to snag 2 of cap's young stars, but totally whiffed on the third. For some reason, I thought his auction was ending later in the evening... *womp womp*

Oh well. seems like he's ending up in a fairly good home with good training facilities regardless.

I just want to know if Dopplegangers are ever going to pursue that lawsuit against Dan Sanders!