Scoring opportunities
A Scoring opportunity is a chances that can result in a goal when playing a match.
The match engine distribution of opportunities is mainly based on ball possession, which in turn is calculated confronting your team's and the opponent team's midfield ratings.
Scoring opportunity types
Scoring opportunities are made up of:
- regular chances, it is well known from the rules that they are a maximum of 10 per match;
- special events and long shots, an indefinite number, with decreasing chance for each following one;
- counter-attacks (both tactical or non-tactical) extra chances.
The following contents are based on the opinion of Hattrick users — which means that their veracity and accuracy have not been confirmed by any official statement, and consequently they do not necessarily reflect the game reality. Please take this into consideration!
It is also a common view that once all 10 normal situations have been allocated, we will no longer be able to score goals from multiple special events. Furthermore, SE's maximum per game is likely 6 (for example, this match had 6 SE's). Finally, the highest number of counter-attacks that can be obtained in a game is 5.
Possession
The ball possession your team has at a certain minute determines your chances of getting a regular chance. The midfield values used in the formula are the ones on that particular minute, while the midfield rating that is displayed at the end of the match is the average of the midfield during the 90 minutes. Possession can be observed on the match report, at the end of the first half (minute 45) and the end of the second half (minute 90) in HT Live and with intervals of 5 minutes in match report.
The Possession percentage is calculated using a formula which takes on consideration the midfield level of both the teams at that particular minute.
Possession (your team) = 100 * ( Midfield [your team] / ( Midfield [your team] + Midfield [opponents team] ) )
- The scale of the midfields values is: 1=disastrous (very low), 2=disastrous (low) ...
- It's also possible to use values: 0,00=disastrous (very low); 0,25=disastrous (low); 0,50=disastrous (high); 0,75=disastrous (very high); 1,00=wretched (very low) ...
In terms of gameplay, one consequence of the formula is that as the average midfield level gets higher, possession differences get smaller for the same difference in midfield levels. For example, a 1 level difference may be:
- 71% of possession if a "wretched (very low)" is against a "disastrous (very low)",
- 54% of possession if a "excellent (very low)" plays against a "solid (very low)".
Sometimes discrepancies between the possession percentages at the 45th and 90th minute and the midfield rating seem to appear.
Player stamina may alter possession minute-to-minute, but this will not produce an event in the match report. It will happens to every player with Playmaking skill contributing to midfield if his stamina is below "excellent".
Discrepancies are also due to events affecting players such as: red cards, injuries, weather non-goal events (to players affecting the midfield); or team confusion.[1] They all affect the midfield from the time the event is reported, hence affect the possession as well.
Possession vs Scoring opportunities
The following contents are based on experience and/or research conducted by Hattrick users — which means that their veracity and accuracy have not been confirmed by any official statement, and consequently they do not necessarily reflect the game reality. Please take this into consideration!
Statistical analysis over the goal opportunities distribution taking into consideration the possession levels suggest that the relation between the possession and the number of scoring opportunities your team has is far from being 1:1. There is a "nonlinearity".
For example:
- when you have 54% possession, you will most likely get 6 out of 10 chances,
- when you have 57% possession, you will most likely get 7 out of 10 chances,
- when you have 62% possession, you will most likely get 8 out of 10 chances.
The numbers suggest that you will most likely get 9 or 10 chances in the game if you have 65% possession.
The formula is believed to be:
% of chances = 100 * ( Midfield [your team]^e / ( Midfield [your team]^e + Midfield [opponents team]^e ) )
e = 2.72 [2]
For example, if [your team]'s midfield rating is wretched low (2.25) and [opponents team]'s midfield rating is poor high (3.5), then [your team] will get the 23% of the chances. [3]
See Also
 Further information: HTs_on_Global/Possession |
Although this nonlinearity is widely believed, HT-Hasse is on record with a forum post stating that the chance a team will get a scoring chance at a particular point in the match is exactly equal to their possession percentage. This statement, however, has later been dismissed by HT-Tjecken, saying "If that's true, then Hasse was most probably hallucinating".
Footnote
- ^ Remember that additional factors that affect midfield ratings uniformly throughout the match include: overconfidence, Team Attitude, Playing Counter attack.
- ^ "e" is the base of the natural logarithm, see Euler's formula.
- ^ It was possible to see in table below the percentage of chances that a team would get depending on the midfield of both teams.
http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/5396/chancesandpossessionni6.gif (<- lost link)
