PowerPlay Журнал

 ( A Comparison of  Pro Pack vs. Standard Play Features for PPM Soccer)

Are premium products worth the cost?  On the surface, it is easy to say NO!  But I like premium products.  Don't give me off brand soft drinks or beer.  Girl Scout cookies may not have many cookies per box, but, those Girl Scout cookies are definitely significantly better than the generic varieties offered at the local grocery store.  Television is another area that those premium products show up.   Generally, the old adage, "you get what you pay for" comes true most of the time. Cable companies offer promotions that allow customers to watch cable premium services at reduced or free rates.   Free is good, but, a funny thing happened during one of those free weekends.  My wife and I made a serious conclusion.  I think it was the Spartacus series on STARZ that originally corralled the family (yes, my wife really liked the Spartacus saga).  For a few more dollars each month, we could watch all of the channels that our local cable company offered.   Nowadays, Spartacus is gone, but, Game of Thrones, Dexter and many others have quickly replaced the void in the Rebel family to watch list.  My summer work requires travel and believe me, I'm not a happy camper when I have to miss an episode of Game of Thrones (thank God for HBOtoGo... another premium service).  How can it be that I have found that a premium service is so valuable?  I am to the point that I see the value in having those premium channels and don't want to be without them.  That same phenomena is happening to customers all over the world when they consider owning a smart phone, having high speed internet,  owning a computer or tablet (or both), and I'm sure you can add more here.  I want to add one more to the list of premium products that are worth the cost,  Pro Pack the premium service offered by Powerplay Manager has surprising value.  For this article I plan to focus on the value of having Pro Pack for soccer.  I will provide a comparison of Pro Pack with Standard play and explain why it is worth considering for your team.

So, before beginning the comparison let me provide you a little background about my team (Cold Mountain Thunder).  My team's history began in season 8 on day 9. I spent my first 3 seasons learning the ropes in league III.11.  During those seasons, I have never finished lower than 3^rd place in my league and the last season there culminated with a perfect record in my league (regular season & playoffs).  I promoted to league II.3 for this season and we are currently in 7^th place.  I see this season as a growth season for the Thunder and will be happy if we finish in the top 14 of the league.   During my 1^st three seasons, I played without Pro Pack for soccer and I have learned ways to productively play without Pro Pack, but, this year I am learning about what I've been missing.

A COMPARISON OF USING PRO PACK VS STANDARD PLAY (without Pro Pack)

TEAM INFORMATION /ANALYSIS:  Using Pro Pack allows a detailed evaluation of upcoming opponents. On the opponents analysis webpage, I can see the highest overall players, most popular players, top scoring players, how they have set up their tactics per match (did they use very low match importance, possession football style, and delay play in every match this season?),  teams strengths (Goalkeeping, Defense, Midfield, or Offense) and lots of other valuable statistics.  Before Pro Pack, I had to find the opponents html page, go to their calendar, and evaluate match by match how the player had set up his team.  While that is not a bad idea, having the information found on the "Analysis" page makes the preparation for upcoming matches seriously easier to complete.

CALENDAR:  Without Pro Pack, friendly  matches can only be scheduled for the upcoming month.  That may sound like plenty of time, but , I can't count how many times that I've moved to a new month on the match calendar and realized that I have a whole page of nonscheduled dates and have to rush and find someone willing to play me for the next few days.  Using Pro Pack, challenges for friendlies can be scheduled several months ahead and if I do slip up and have a unscheduled match coming up, then the automatic opponent scheduling option solves that problem easily providing you with assistance in finding an appropriate  opponent for the upcoming match with the click of a few buttons.   Far easier than tediously searching league standings to find my potential  opponent for  upcoming friendlies.

MATCH:  A huge advantage of Pro Pack is the extra match settings that become available when subscribed to the premium service.   Before Pro Pack, each day, I would determine the type of match coming up and change my lineup, substitution, other settings and tactics.  Doing that made for a better team but, also, took lots of time.  Setting up lineups to allow your starters a breather, while your benchwarmers get some playing time is not a tedious task with Pro Pack.  With Pro Pack, you can prepare 4 extra lineups (I have chose to prepare a best lineup, a defensive lineup, a friendlies lineup that doesn't include any of my starters, and the forth lineup is for injuries, suspensions, or special occasion).  If that were all that was included in Pro Pack, life would be easier with it, but, Pro Pack also provides you the ability to prepare  4 extra sets of settings, substitutions, and tactics that you can further engineer your plans for upcoming matches.  In addition, use planning to choose the lineups and tactics to be used for the various types of upcoming matches (using the benchwarmers for friendlies and the best lineup for most of the other matches, but maybe changing tactics for league matches vs. the various Cup or Tournament matches).  Barring suspensions & injuries, your team can literally run on its on using the Pro Pack feature.

PLAYERS:  I've left the best for last.  Training your players can be a time consuming job.  It isn't very fun to daily, at least weekly, check each player's stats to determine if the current training plan is on the proper attribute.  The best players are strategically engineered.  They are designed with the traits that will make them better than other players at their position.  You don't want a goal keeper with a 300 Goalkeeping attribute and only have all other skills/attributes under 50 points each.  I know that is the extreme, but, you can find players out there that are built like that.   Setting these attributes daily can be tedious, but, rewarding.   Pro Pack provides a better way to complete this process.  With the premium service, you can set attributes in order of priority.  For example, if I were building a goal keeper and wanted his primary skill to be goalkeeping, I would set that attribute to 100.  If I wanted his passing attribute to be 50 % of his goalkeeping I would set that attribute to 50.  Each attribute, would have similar settings based on the emphasize that I felt each attribute deserved.  Once set, the player is ready to train.  With the Pro Pack there is no daily setting the attribute to train today.  The system automatically calculates and trains the appropriate attribute.  The only adjustments that are required are when you decide that maybe 50 was too high for the goalkeepers passing skill and you slide it back to let's say around 45.  This service saves the team owner lots of valuable time for other daily activities.

Now, I know that there are far more options available with Pro Pack.  I'm not going to try and name features that I did not cover.  I know that some of the features that I failed to mention are awesome.   But, just like HBO, Showtime, & other premium television networks that have numerous features that I don't always realize that I've missed.   The features that I HAVE used from PPM Pro Pack, just like those with premium cable TV are things that I don't want to live without.  Leonardo da Vinci once said "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."  The same can be said for many premium services including Powerplayer Manager's Pro Pack.  Once I have used the service, I find that I don't want to be without it.