The Pirates are Playing Football! Will You Join Us?

Good night, friends!

I've decided to join the fun and play Rabona to pass the time and have a good time managing a football team among my friends of the Hive.

The first thing you should know is that this is just a game. It requires an entry payment of around 32 Hive to begin and you should not consider joining unless you like Football Manager games. This is not an investment, the likelihood of getting your 32 Hive back while playing the game is extremely low... but who knows, maybe the game rewards will increase in the future?

Now, let's talk about the game...

I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting and addictive the game is right from the start. It's not complicated to understand the game mechanisms and everything is pretty much self-explanatory.

The name of my team is Straw Hat Pirates, a very familiar name if you know the One Piece series:

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When you join, you'll have enough players to form a team randomly generated by the game:

A Goalkeeper;
4 Defenders
4 Midfielders
4 Attackers

I think this is what I got... unless I'm forgetting anyone.

I was lucky enough to receive a Portuguese Striker on my initial set of players, with a Shooting Skill of 99: 😎

The other 3 guys, however, were a bit on the weak side... and I got these 3 other guys on the Market to replace them. Oddly enough, the Spaniard Raul Iglesias has been proving to be a better Defender than Attacker, so I've moved him to a Defender position.

My Midfielders are alright... I'm happy with 3 of them, since they have a nice Passing Skill and are not too weak on the Defence:

But I got a Defender who's pretty good at Passing and Dribbling and quite weak at the Defence so I promoted the guy to the number 10 position:

He's been playing as a support to the Strikers and he has scored a couple of goals already, despite his low Shooting Skill. I'll leave him there, since he's been proving he can fill that spot very well. However, I need to find another solution for the next 3 matches, as he scored a goal and was sent off with a Red Card afterwards. 🤔

This is my second Red Card in 7 matches. I think I'll send my Pirates to a Yoga retreat. 🤭

My Defenders are the weak link of the team, sadly. Connor Jennings is the only good one:

The other Defenders are not very good at Passing and Speed. Brian Schumacher has a high Team Player spirit, which compensates for the lack of other technical skills.

I guess I'll be Training the Defense and Passing Skills of my team, so that it becomes more consistent and don't concede so many goals.

Yep, they've been conceding a lot of goals...

I'm back to the number 1 spot, after winning my last game. 5 Wins and 2 Defeats, that ain't so bad for a beginner. Right? But, boy. 11 goals against on 7 matches? That's way too much.

Now I have to decide what to do for my next match. Will I move Raul Iglesias to the front... or give that spot to one of the substitutes, who are not very good team players?

It gets difficult with 2 of my main Midfielders being suspended at the same time. 🙄

The game allows you to Train your players once a day... (more, if you're willing to trade some of your Hive for it), which increases their Skills in one area... but lose a bit on other areas.

Since the weakest links of my team are the Defence and Passing Skills, I'll be training that. However, I need to be careful not to lose a lot of Shooting Skills on my Striker... as you can see, he's no longer at 99 after my last training: 🤨

This game requires a bit of planning and cold head... because the financial aspect is not easy:

As you can see, I'm on the red, mostly because I spent some money buying some players on the market... which increased the number of players in the squad and also the total wages I need to pay. So, if you go crazy and start hiring too many guys, you'll bleed dry very quickly.

Now I'll have to count with the ones I got until the end of the season and I will only hire another player if I find a cheap and very good chap on the market.

To win money you need to find a good balance on the prices you set. You get to define how much a Ticket costs, how much for a Shirt and Scarf, you also decide on the price of the Beer and Sausages. If you charge too much, no one will pay for it... if you charge too low, everyone will pay but you won't make enough money to cover the wages and other running costs of maintaining a team.

You can upgrade your Stadium to fit more fans, you can upgrade the Food Stands to be able to sell more Food and Beer... but beware, because it all costs money and you need to think if you have enough fans to meet the demand.

So, think well... and set the prices as if your bank account depends on it. 😉

So far I've been having fun with the game... let's see how long I'll be able to last. After all, this is just a game and not real life, otherwise I could simply go to the Government asking for a bailout. 😅

If you want to check out the game, please consider doing it through my referral link and we'll both get 25000 RBN (this is the game currency and it's enough to buy a player or two on the market):

https://rabona.io?ref=trincowski