It’s a shame that this thread 9548772.1 didn’t receive more awareness. Having said that I’m pretty sure it has been discussed before that thread hit the conferences, and probably well after as well.

It was Kiddbeck, a coach in Deutschland who posted this question:

I thought the number of the 2 coaches could not be more than 10, but many people told me they had use 10 assis + 1 keeper coach for seasons without problem.

Anyone who had ever problem with 10 + 1?

And off we were. It seems that there has been quite many managers that have been using more than the “maximum” of 10 coaches for seasons without being penalized for it. If you weren’t aware of this; it has always been said that the maximum and recommended number of coaches a team could have is 10. Over the years we’ve seen many discussions about managers arguing their case whether 9/1 or 8/2 or even 7/3 is the correct distribution as 10 is the maximum for goalkeeping coaches and assistant coaches. The case about the distribution comes from the fact that you should always keep at least one goalkeeping coach (if training something else than keepers) or one assistant coach (if training outfield players) - as this coach will help the non-trainees to keep and improve form while training of the trainees are maximized.

Anyway, back to the subject. Kiddbeck got surprisingly (for yours truly) responses from managers saying that they were, and had always used e.g. 11 coaches, meaning that they’ve distributed the coaches as 10/1, 9/2 or 8/3. The risk involved with this has always been said to be a loss in training, which could indeed happen - but the real loss in most cases seemed to be a drop in team spirit. This is what it might look like under your clubpage;

“The team has lost training for the week due the incomprehensible actions of the club manager.”
“Team spirit fell dramatically as the oh-so-many assistant coaches got into a fight.”
“Some of your many assistant- and keeper trainers got into a fight the other day. You probably have too many of them and the mood in the team is suffering.”

We clearly can see that the first message involves a loss in training while the other two implies a drop in team spirit. Some comments in the thread to support the fact that the 11th coach could be used included:

- “I’ve been playing since 2001. I’ve always had 10+1 trainers, and never had a problem.”
- “I’m currently using 9 & 2 and have never had problems with it.”
- “I used 9-2 for years while I was training keepers. Never had a negative effect.”
- “I’ve been 10+1 for about 12 seasons I guess.”

While the “unlucky” (?!) one said:

- “Some years ago i went from 8+2 to 9+1, but i hired a new one before firind the other, so at one time, aprox 15 secs. I was 9+2. In those 15 secs i lost Training for that week.”

Please note that while this thread in the end probably more supported and leaned towards the 11th coach actually being fact, I can in no way support this by ANY own OR extensive external surveys. What I can say however is that I’ve once been in the “unlucky” ones shoes.

Myth or fact?

[The background information and data for this article was researched and collected through the Hattrick Library (Alliance ID: 71795)]