retired_isooze

OK Morridin and ZJ - here is another strange business with international job applications... I apply to be manager of Senegal expecting to be told that I am unsuccessful yet again.

I was unsuccessful - so no surprise there. But the manager who beat me to the job was absolutely crap! It was another randomly generated manager (the threshold theory seems to hold firm here) but this time his stats are awful - 850, 850, 255. In comparison, my stats are great - 4365, 4283, 1750. Very strange. Seems to support the theory of the threshold though - I was automatically rejected because below a certain reputation value I guess.

I am currently based in England and I also recently lost out to a couple of jobs in Ireland. Sligo Rovers in the Irish Prem and Fingal in the First Division. The managers who beat me to these jobs have the following reps (respectively): 4327, 3642, 2303 (fair enough, I was beaten by the better man) and 3963, 3808, 1510 (I was the better candidate but perhaps lost out due to nationality - plus I was already at a club with a 1 year contract and thus compensation may have played a part).

Still struggling to build up a reputation. Have been linked with lots of clubs in League One but none have been forthcoming.

C.

retired_joannalaw

And the eventual threshold value increases.

Ghana application, unsuccessful

Human manager
5069
5808
3046

Regenerated manager
3100
3100
930

Thought I should be famous enough by now...


There is a lot to gain from picking the right club. In my game I got the job of recently relegated Coca-cola league 2 side Hartlepool. Because they had been steady runners in Coca-Cola league 1 they were predicted to finish 2nd the coming season. This would be no problem as most of the players in the original team were given 7 stars in current ability by my new assistant, so I only made minor changes to the first team. Not winning the league was not really an option, and my team eventually won the league by 21 points. Currently half way through my first season in coca-cola 1 and history is repeating it self, as I'm in the lead with 10 points to go on nr. 2.

More will come in a big update as I finish this season, but the lesson is pick the winners.

retired_bradp

Hey again, sorry for the time away, been busy writing essays and watching the EURO's.

Anyway, haven't had time to do much research, but here is what happened during the season.

Start of season: 2873, 3640, 2421 and club 4397.

3 games before end of season: 3080, 3802, 2680 and club 4437.

End of season (finished 9th, an 1 place improvement on previous year): 3107, 3872, 2704 and club 4500.

Season increases: 234, 232, 284. Club 103.

Of this, aruond 20-25 was a jump due to league result for me, the club got a 63 point bumb which is lower than the 100ish I got the year before with a worse position. Seem to be indicating that its relative to reputation. The numbers for me is however slightly altered by the fact that I'm also the Cameroon manager.

Here is some additional information about that, I don't have the numbers though as I've lost that paper.

I won my qualifier for the African Cup of Nations, only got a small 5 point increase over 6 games. Not suprising given that the qualification is rather insignificant, against low rep opposition. However, the tournament itself will be interesting and that is my next thing to look at more closely now that I have time.

I did some additional tests, and here comes a important one: Do not lose international games, even friendlies! I manufactured a loss against Sudan. I saw a 25 or more point drop in my reputation. Similarly, I lost a friendly 1-3 against Mexico (a team with more reputation than me) and saw a 12-15 point drop over the board. I also drew 2-2 against the Czech Republic which increased my points 5 points or so. Hopefully i'll manage to get a win against a high reputation team to see what that does, similarly the WC qualifiers are coming up so if I can make it through that we can see the impact of a World Cup on reputation.

With regards to job hunting, so far only have had minor success with really small teams in leagues related to my nationalities. However, I seem to be getting Danish jobs quite easily so thought it might be language and/or knowledge related? As with a Scandinavian nationality language and knowledge comes with and thus it might increase the chance of getting hired?

I have another test on that coming up, as being the Cameroon manager has taught me French fluently so going to apply for all French jobs to see if I have any success with that.

Sorry for not providing much evidence, will hopefully get some good information in the future.

retired_bradp

Here is the stats for the African Cup of Nations (rep 13).

Before the tournament I had 3107, 3872, 2704. I actually went on to win the whole thing so only did a reload of the final to check what happened if I lost and to confirm if the rep increase for losers still holds. The numbers in parantesis is the increase from game to game.

4-1 Togo --> 3268, 3923, 2959 (+161, +51, +255)

3-2 Ghana --> 3368, 3929, 3127 (+100, +0, +168)

2-0 South Africa --> 3456, 3937, 3270 (+88, +8, +143)

QF 2-0 Ivory Coast --> 3547, 3959, 3407 (+91, +22, +137)

SF 1-0 Marocco --> 3581, 3959, 3470 (+34, 0, +63)

Final (win) 1-0 Ghana --> 5066, 5233, 5024 (+1485, +1274, +1554)

Final (loss) 3-4 Ghana --> 4480, 4721, 4419 (+899, +762, +949)


So the total increase in the tournament for a win was 1959, 1361, 2320. Although the the final was worth approx 3/4 (win) or 2/3 (loss) of the total value so thats the key really.

However, note the massive increases in World Rep over the first few games so just doing well there was very valuable. Seems like either that its relative to your current rep level or that the results from the score is greatly magnified (i.e. the 4-1 win margin makes for a much larger increase). Looking at the reps of the teams I played this seems likely and confirms the previous connection to odds.

Ok, got some more very interesting information coming up, but will save that for later as I've got to run a few more tests first to confirm it.

/Z

retired_isooze

Well done on winning the cup ZJ !

Quick question for you - it seems from what you have written above that you get quite a big manager reputation boost for getting runners up spot in the cup. Is this the same for all cup competitions or just the international ones? And does this also apply for the league, i.e. if you are runner up in the league, do you get the same significant reputation boost?

I'm currently involved in a title race and also in a cup final - just wondering how much I stand to lose in temrs of reputation if my team bottles it!

C.

retired_bradp

Cheers

According to Morridins experience in his league cup combined with the African cup results, it seems like a place in the final means you will get a rep boost (a relatively big one), no matter if the tournament if international or domestic.

However, for leagues it seems to be slightly different. A promotion will get you a rep boost, but finishing just outside that will basically only get you a minor increase (around 50-150). It also seems like becoming Champions gives a much larger increase than a 2nd place promotion when compared to cups, i.e. the runners up in a cup get about 50-60% of what the winner gets, but in leagues the other promoted teams will only get around 20-30% of the team that won the league, sometimes even less than 10%.

This may be connected to your relative rep as well, so if you get promoted with a team with a really low rep you will get a comparatively large increase and vice-versa.

So, for the cup final you are pretty set, you'll get a good increase from that although winning it is obviously better and in the title race, promotion is the real key.

/Z

retired_isooze

Well, had a rep of 4680, 4431, 1974 built up over 5 years with St. Albans City (in BSS, BSP, L2) and 2 years with Derry City (Irish 1st).

So, I lost the Irish League Cup final (very low rep of about 3) and I didn't want to replay it for testing purposes due to the pain and suffering it would bring knowing what could have been. I still got a pretty decent boost up to 4778, 4527, 2006 - however, I also won a MoM award so that might have pushed it up too.

Good news on the league front (rep 7) which I won with a few games to spare. This took me up to 5970, 5689, 2599 - a huge boost, especially to my World Rep, which has really gone up due to my move to Ireland.

I am now hoping that some Championship club will come after me, or a second tier Italian, French or German club. I did get one job offer by a newly promoted second tier German club with a very low rep but turned it down due to their lack of playing staff.

Hopefully my rep will now be sufficient for me to push for a decent job. I'm trying to get to the top. I wonder if I might be able to get one of those elusive African international jobs now too? With improved world rep, I just might.

Fingers crossed.

C.

retired_isooze

Just for your interest, I left Derry City at the end of the season with my manager reputation at the same level as in my last post (in game rating of 'National').

I waited until the next summer to get a new job and I was offered the following:

Luton Town (L2)
Leeds United (L1)
Birmingham (L1)
Cardiff (CC)
Leicester (CC)
Watford (CC)

I was turned down for jobs in the premiership but got offered most jobs in the championship.

I am also running Italian, French, German and Irish leagues.
I got offered several top jobs in Ireland.
Ligue 2 sides in the lower half of the table offered me jobs in France.
Only 1 or 2 very lowly Italian clubs were interested in me.
In Germany, I was generally able to go for some of the second division middle to top sides. The very best in the second division rejected me.

In the end, I accepted a job with Kaiserslauten in the German Second Division (rep of about 5000, which matches with the rep of the best clubs who were offering me jobs in England).

I think moving to Ireland might have helped with my world reputation, which was much lower when I moved to Derry City from St. Albans City. This might be the reason behind my success in being offered some of the foriegn jobs.

I realise this isn't exactly scientific testing
but thought it might be interesting for people to know what kind of jobs can be got with a certain level of reputation.

ZJ - when you got an international job with an African side (I'm sorry to say that I can't remember which one it was now) were you unemployed? Was your reputation similar to mine? I'm desperate for an international job offer now!

C.

retired_bradp

Very good work, this is directly connected to the very interesting thing I mentioned before (its coming in the next post).

It seems to confirm that moving around indeed increased your world rep, as it should and that it helps, I just changed clubs myself so I'll see if I notice that as well.

I got Cameroon, and no I wasn't unemployed. Basically all of a sudden a bunch of International jobs came up and I applied to them and got one. Keep your eyes open after the African Cup of Nations and WQ/Euro qualifiers as a couple is usually fired then.

Anyway, now moving on to the next post!

retired_bradp

Ok, this will be a fairly long post and I will get mixed up in my own logic so if there is any confusion, just ask. Apologies for spelling errors as well. There is some interesting stuff here though.


For a variety of reasons it became clear that my Russian club could not carry me further and I quit as it was April and thus loads of job openings around the world when leagues finishes (I'm running England, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Sweden on full detail to lowest possible league, most other major/minor European countries on view-only).

After only 4 days I got an offer, Padova in Serie C1. It was a step down in rep (12 for Russian Premier to 8 in C1) but the club itself made the choice easy. Secure economy, massive stadium, a not too shabby squad, 500k in transfer and a good sized wage budget. It was also in Italy, meaning there is some serious climbing possible. Its Rep is 3800, so a step down the 4900 I taken my former club to but still fairly good. I accepted the job and saved them from relegation play-out in the lat 4 games before the end of season.

However, I remembered that I had a save from about a couple of weeks before I quit the first job, so I got the idea for an experiment. After many reloads, the Padova job opened up in the exact same time, but this time I was still employed. Guess what? I didn't get the job... reloaded a couple of times, but never got it.

What can we learn from this? - There is a difference if you are employed or not.

This has 2 reasons, which I think both are valid.

1) Your under contract and you have to be paid. While this sum might seem small, it can be quite significant for smaller clubs and there is more to this as well, but I'll get onto that below.

2) When you quit your job, it seems your Current rep is static but ceases to be specific from the country of your club to being general, accessable to all nations you have loaded. This is based firstly on the fact that I got the job while unemployed but also on the news items that says you are being considered for jobs. While I was in Russia, I was never linked to any job but while I was unemployed I was linked with loads of jobs (supporting the theory that your current rep being more generic when you are unemployed). All of the jobs I was linked too was for clubs with rep below mine so no suprise there. After I accepted the Padova job, I was constantly again being linked with jobs all over the place (remember that my rep is still the same as it was when I was in Russia but never was linked with anything).

Interestingly, looking at the jobs I was being linked to there was a similar trend again that they were below my current/home rep but here I discovered an interesting thing. I was only being linked with jobs in the same nations - Italy, France, Germany, England and Sweden. The latter two is because thats my nationalities, but the first two is directly related to the almost geographical closeness. I've never been linked with the other nations (Although I think this will change once your world rep becomes high enough). There is also a possibility that the geograpic aspect is also related to knowledge of countries and/or relative rep of the leagues itself. It may also be that the jobs can only be in a band around your own rep, say at most +500 rep better than you or something like that - although this is just speculation that needs to be looked into more.

When combined with the following factors, it explain why I never got any offers in Russia:

Russia only have 2 leagues, so say 40-50 clubs and if you run it at full detail there is probably a larger database of managers than that, meaning that when it decided who to link with it is very unlikely that a human controlled manager will be in the top 4. However, if you are in different parts of the world, say England/Spain/Germany/Italy with several layers of leagues there is more clubs, i.e. more likely that the human manager would be on of the top 4 within the right rep bracket of what the club know it can get and hence the links all the time. I'm however so far not been actually offered a single job but more about that coming:


After this, I went back again to my save and resigned from the Russian team, went on holiday just to see the spectrum of teams that would offer me jobs if I applied. My reps is approx 5000, 5200, 5000. The jobs I got was up to around 90% of my rep, so 4800 although its still possible to get higher I would assume if you are lucky. The best teams I could get varied from low end Championship clubs to low end Serie B clubs. There was some discrepencies though, particularly being offered the Southampton job which at the time is a top CC club. Looking into this, I started checking the various factors and I found that there was a very stable trend between the chairmen of all the teams which offered me a job: They had a high value for Business, typically 14-20. Looking around, it made a bit of sense as my salery of my old club (£1200) was way, way below what other managers was getting in the same leagues. This ties into what I said before about contracts for managers effecting employment as Business-minded chairmen is less likely to hire you as opposed to when you are unemployed and "free". This obviously works the other way as well, if you are relatively really well-paid a business minded chairmen might not want you. Other chairman stats might thus also effect the hiring decisions and skew the process - Kipfizh's experiment shows some of this as well, that a incompetent board can't pick a good manager etc.

So if this is somewhat accurate, it explains quite a few things such as why you don't get certain jobs, why it can be hard moving from one high profile club to another (as long as you are hired, your current rep is locked to the country and whatever formula the game uses to compare you to other managers gives you a disadvantage), and why you never get jobs you are said to be the favorite of getting. I also found out a way of while being in game, legally, checking roughly what jobs you can get. Simple declare interest in jobs when the managers are under pressure and if the news item says anything else than its just you being desperate, you can get it. I tried this with the Padova job and it said I only had a outside chancing of getting it but I still got it.

Also, this can be wrong but it seems to be a higher turnover of managers when you are unemployed, over 4-5 reloads there is about 1.2-1.4 as many openings when you are unemployed as compared to when you are not. Could just be that when you are unemployed you notice it more but it makes sense though as it would be little point in having to wait endlessly to get a job.

Time to play again!

/Z