• don [del]
• 2010-10-11

We have changed the way the application for new teams are examined. Previously if a new user registered to Sokker they had to wait until an admin accepted their applications until they got a team and could log on. Depending on when applications were accepted previously, it might take even up to a few days. As there were delays only 40% of users logged in to their teams after they got their team approved (probably they even forgot that they registered on some game and the team mail was treated as spam :).

With modified teams acceptance they will be able to log on just after they confirm their registration by clicking on link in the mail (of course if there are free teams in the country). They will have their team created, so will be able to set up the squad, set training, watch matches and so familiarize with Sokker. New users, until admin fully accept their application, will have limited rights, the following will not be allowed:

- write in forum or vote in forum polls
- write email
- buy plus
- sell/buy or advertise player
- bid on trainer
- vote in elections or candidate for NT
- bet on match in TV Studio or write comment
- join as friends of other users

We hope that with this change we can increase the amount of users who log in to sokker after team acceptance.

• don [del]
• 2010-07-20

Starting with Wednesdays friendlies we are testing a new version of the match engine. In the new engine we have added a little more combination play with short passes to make matches more nice to watch and to further decrease the strength of defensive tactics (tactics like 532). We are also allowing managers to set their own ticket prices.

Combination play

It might look like this is a little change.... but that's not true. In fact the modification is much bigger than the ticket prices added. As with that change there is a related testing process that took a number of weeks. How do we test? We generate hundred of matches and run them repeatedly. It takes up to half and hour. Than we analyse the statistics we get from the matches like average score, shots on the goal, number of passes, long and short, average pass distance, and dozens of similar stats. We check in the statistics to see if the engine performed close to what we wanted to achieve (usually its not:), view some matches and than make some parameter tuning and engine corrections and then repeat testing.... over and over for weeks. Despite this laborious testing, we are still not sure how the engine will perform in every single match. We have already tested combination play a few seasons ago, but that time it failed and we removed it from the match engine. Hopefully this time it will be a success as it is now a much better balance. Please report bugs on Bugs / Ideas (en) forum with match ID and minute, report bug only if weird situation is repeated at least twice in single match and if it is passing bug - especially if player passed instead of shooting or passed to the wrong player. We are mainly interested in NT matches bugs or with top club teams playing their first team squads. Reported bugs in other situation will make it hard to determine if the player was just low skilled, or the engine generated the mistaken action :]

Ticket prices

We are now allowing you to set your match ticket prices for each stand. Prices are able to be set on your stadium page. How expensive or cheap compared to the default price in the rules you set is up to you. We recommend you set prices depending on the size of the supporters clubs of both teams. The better the teams playing the higher you can expect to put the ticket price and still expect the same number of supporters attending your match. So you would get a higher income. Good club teams may expect even 50% or more ticket income on matches than before (so 150% of previous income). Notice that if you set the prices much too high less supporters will come, and you can expect lower income. Same if the price is much too low, more supporters will come, but not so much to compensate for such a low price. You will get the highest income if you set the right price for class of teams playing in the match. Of course, if your stadium is little and you expect many supporters to attend the match, more than the total number of places in the stadium, you can set a higher price to get a higher income. However you don't get so high an income compared to extending the stadium.

Reason for the change, apart from making the game more varied and interesting, was saturation of the market with good players at high skills and high wages. Top teams, in many situations, were forced to trade many players to balance their income with expense on wages.

• don [del]
• 2010-07-16

You can now see a new feature in the TV Studio for your matches. It is the supporters expectations about the match score. Of course if the match score is better than the fans expected this will improve their mood. If the score is worse this will make their mood drop. The amount of change in mood depends on how good or bad the score was. Levels of that expectations are listed in the rules. Like every levels in Sokker there is a hidden sublevel. For example if the expectation level is 5.1 this will be shown as 5.

Also with this news we want to reveal one of the supporters mood secrets - the class indicator used for mood calculations after a match. It was already said it depends on previous matches of a team, class of rivals competing and the scores achieved in these matches. This is all true.... because the class indicator is the Fanclub members of the team. Why it is fair? Let's say you draw with team with much less supporters, it means that score shows teams are fairly equal, or at least they were in the match just played, but supporters club is different. It simply means that some of your fans will think your team is not as big as they thought they were and their mood will drop. If the mood has dropped too low then some will then leave. The opposite effect happens to the opponent team. Their supporters mood will rise and if it becomes high enough new fans will join their club.
Similar situation on size of wins, if you win much less than expected against clubs with a lot less class (supporters numbers) than you the supporters mood will drop, the opponent supporters mood will improve. These calculation are based on thousands of match statistics. Please don't blame the system if you got a worse score than teams usually achieve, this will affect your supporters mood.

Notice that there is no modification to the supporters mood system - please don't report problems on supporters mood calculations. All complaints about supporters mood calculation have been analysed before, and if there was a problem it was taken into consideration already.

• rtg [del]
• 2010-06-01

With 2010-06-01 scripts update and new features are introduced:




Tutors

Newbies can now send question to Tutors in your country (if they exist), questions on subjects related with sokker eg. if you are not sure about something in the rules. Messages are sent from Your country -> Staff page, just like messages to Admins or Mods (select Tutors in the dropdown box). Your question will be answered by the first tutor who reads it.

Articles

You can now rate other people's team articles and association articles, the best articles are displayed on the news page, and also on the new menu on news page.

Picture upload

Finally, you no longer need to use external servers to upload your team logo or your photo. Picture upload is available under Office -> Media menu.

Extended notifications

You will get notifications on events like:
- somebody has written in your guestbook
- your player has been appointed to national team
- you have sold a player
- somebody proposed you a manager pact
- somebody proposed a friendly match with your club
- your friendly match invitation has been accepted
- your plus will expire soon
- A player who originated from your junior school is on the transfer list (will be implemented soon)

And...

...other minor improvements and bugs fixes (especially related with previous improvements implementation:).

Some worth mentioning are:
- association owner may now pass association to another user, if they leave sokker, the control is set to highest level user in the association
- on junior matches played stats you will now see formation junior played and mark
- federations you can join limit has been extended to 10
- skill numbers are now visible on match lineup page (if set in options)
- articles and associations internal scirpts re-organisation (you shall not see major changes, but if there are bugs, please report this and other bugs found on Bugs / Ideas (en) forum

• don [del]
• 2010-03-24

Starting with next Thursday graphs data won't be removed for plus users. It means that you will be able to scroll graphs of your juniors, players skills, team data (like money balance or supporter mood) backward since it is stored. For non-plus users previously graphs data was being stored 10 weeks backward only.

Also, with Thursday training, the graph will be marked if the player trained. If skill was not trained it will be marked gray on the graph. On passing or playmaking training for DEF formation (when DEF and MID get half training each), both DEF and MID will be marked as trained.

• don [del]
• 2010-03-17

In the shop we have a new Sokker T-shirt avaialble. The new T-shirt is presented by Match Generator, who reveals himself to the public for the first time. He has performed with the T-shirt on some fashion shows and immediately became a sensation in many magazines. Generator proved to be an excellent model, so we hope he will share his new passion with existing Sokker duties.

The new skyblue edition of the Sokker T-shirt is exactly same fashion as the green one. Raw pictures from photo sessions can be acquired here:

upload.sokker.org/t-shirt/

• don [del]
• 2010-02-26

We have decided to let users choose what skill name appearance they want. It is possible to set on your user page settings. The first option is to leave the skills as it is. You can choose for numbers to appear as a hint on mouse over. The final option is to have the numbers appear alongside the skill levels permanently.

Numbers in languages that were in skill names before will be now removed.

• Arnau [del]
• 2010-02-08

Our developers have some news to share:

Juniors:

Plus users now have more, readily available, information about their junior players in the juniors page. Graphics have been improved, they can see the list of matches played by the junior player and, as the main addition, they may make notes on each player. This will allow better monitoring of their youth players.

Mail:

Most bugs related to the recent change in the mail system have been fixed.

Junior leagues:

We introduced the search of teams by both id and name. The various appearances of the team searched in the standings, played matches and upcoming matches will be highlighted in a different color. This new feature is in beta and will be upgraded soon.

As usual, this update of the site has been used to make small improvements and fix several minor bugs, the notes in friendlies being one of them.

• don [del]
• 2010-01-29

The biggest event for the National Teams is well underway, now that the group stages have been completed. From now on, its the knock-out stages. The following countries made it through and will play each other on Saturday. Be sure not to miss any of it!

All countries mentioned second are the winners of their groups.

Česká Republika - Polska

Playing against arguably the best country in Sokker, Česká Republika have a tough match ahead. Still, there are no easy matches on this level and the Polish will have to take their opponent seriously.

Brasil - USA

In an epic match which involved a comeback from 0-3 to a 4-3 Brasil managed to grab the second place in the Group of Death. Now they will have to play the USA, lead by one of the best tacticians the English have to offer.

Hrvatska - Deutschland

It's said football is a game of ninety minutes with Germany winning. It's up to Hrvatska to prove the saying wrong!

Columbia - Argentina

Argentina managed to win the Group of Death, which involved beating Brasil, New Zealand and Holland. Columbia however managed to beat the country which managed to win the Top Team Tournament, Spain. Spain did beat Poland at that time.

Lietuva - England

Lietuva is a strong country with an impressive track record. England managed to win in another Group of Death, beating Italy and Mexico. An impressive feat for Ermejo, who never lead an NT before. Italy didn't even manage to get ouf this group, which is one of the bigger upsets this WC!

Eesti - België

Eesti is often described as the Second Best country. This time they had some trouble getting through. They now get to play België, who have in Deroo one of the best strikers in the world. België is led by an old fox: Borkos. Without doubt the most exciting match!

México - España

España, the winners of the Top Team Tournament, face now México which managed to grab second place after England against most expectations. The very experienced Chinese will have to figure out something to beat the powerful Spanish. Both sides expressed their dismay at facing such a powerful opponent.

Österreich - Slovensko

Slovensko, lead by Mapec, is easily underestimated. France is probably still regretting the choice to play a 4-x-x against Slovensko in the opening match of the group stage, which ended in a 2-2. Österreich is said to be a team with a very solid defence. Coming from USA's NT coach, known for his staunch defending, that is saying something. Both teams are considered outsiders, but don't let that fool you: they may just surprise you yet!

• rtg [del]
• 2010-01-17

Champions Cup Final: The time has come
Yes, we are here. There is no way back now. On Thursday 21st January we will know who the best of the best is; we will know the first Sokker World Champion.

After two pulsating semi-finals we have the two finalists, they have already defeated six powerful rivals, in a lot of peoples eyes both of them are already champions, but like in Highlander the movie: There can be only one.
Just one immortal who will be remembered forever as the first team to win the most important club's cup of the game.
Who will it be?

We don't know yet, but we would like to analyze both finalist to help you to understand both teams a bit better and after reading we invite you to show us your preferences.

If If Between
The three times French Cup Champion made a great comeback to win his semi-final against the terrific Team Niløse. It was a very close game that ended 2:1. The Danish team began better and took the lead in 27 minutes thanks to a great header from Tymianek who finished a killer high ball from Horejš . That goal spurred the players on of manager Benwa and ten minutes later a counterattack initiated by a long pass from defender Garnero ended on the feet of the Romanian skilful striker Gabrian who dribbled round the keeper and slid the ball into the net nonchalantly to tie the game. From that moment the If If boys took control of the game and finally on the 63rd minute a beautiful combination between Garnero and Croatian Midfielder Bajčeta who then made an impressive through pass to left allowed Gabrian through one on one with the keeper who couldn't stop the second and final goal. The French team then defended their lead effectively until the referee blew the final whistle to conclude this tense and very tactical semi-final.

At a press conference held just before the semi-final, manager Benwa was questioned about his possibilities to reach the final. His answer to the Colombian Press Agency was: "I hope :) But, I'm one of the weaker team’s ratings wise since the last 16. So I need to rely heavily on my tactical senses to win the semi final and make be the final."

Now that we know that his tactical nous made him win and reach the final in a fantastic way, we have the key question: will his sense be enough to defeat the cup's surprise package Arsenal?

Arsenal
The Spanish cup holders never tire of surprising all of us. His semi-final against FC Red Card was very impressive indeed. Arsenal dominated from the beginning with a pushed up 5 defensive line and clearly won the match by a 6:2 score. Despite the fact that Arsenal were missing some of their best players, you wouldn’t have noticed it. They just passed away against the three times Finland Cup Champion. The powerful Swedish striker Wallen piling in with 4 goals and the Brazilian young star Nelo with 2 goals, supported by solid and creative polish midfielders Masajada and Stanisz both with a couple of assists to their name put this tie to bed easily.
15 minutes after the beginning of the second half the Finland guys seem to start a spirited comeback when they scored their first goal through the sensational striker Podliński, but Arsenal stepped up another gear and scored three more goals. Comfortable victory in the end for the Spanish team.
After this victory we could say that the Spanish Cup Champions have been sensational, the Arsenal manager Cesc knows it and during a Spanish Press Conference stated: "I agree, we have played very well although there were a couple of things to improve on if we want to win the final. I'm happy, it's obvious, but to reach the final will be worthless if we don't win it – no one ever remembers the runners up. So we will have to make it perfect to win this trophy."

There is no doubt that this will be a great final, maybe the best we could have asked for at the beginning of the tournament. Two teams who did not start as the favourites. Two outsiders that have reached this final with great tactics, proving that in this game the team with the better players and most money doesn’t mean they will win the match.

We will have to wait until Thursday to know who will make the better tactic, who will pick the best team, who can inspire their players the best to give more than 100%, which of them will exploit the rival's weaknesses, to step forward and for the first time be crowned Sokker World Club Champion.


In the meanwhile we invite you to enjoy the summary of both semi-finals made by Brazilian Press Agency: Sokker News