A reminder to everybody that tomorrow is the last youth pull before the end of the season and that where possible, do NOT pull your players until the new season starts (a few days from now).  If you wait until the start of the new season before pulling them from the Sports Academy, you wont suffer any Age or C/L loss. A few days can mean a lot, especially if you are lucky and pull a high quality player.

Recent news from the PPM team has given light to a new question regarding a teams structure and setup.  Until earlier this week managers were charged a 25% "penalty" on contracts for foreign players.  That meant, if you signed a player off the market who was not from your country, you would pay 25% more for them when their contract came up for renewal.  While this may not have seemed like a big issue, a $4000 contract for a local player would cost you $5000 for a foreign of equal skill.

That has recently changed however.  PPM this week PPM removed this penalty paving the way for managers to build their teams as they wish without the risk of running much higher team expenses.

Which raises the question... if you want to build a strong team for the future, do you look to domestic players and build from the Sports Academy or do you look to foreign strength through the market place?

The 2 Side Of The Argument

Foreign players give you a few major advantages.  First of all, you can go to the market and buy the player you need based on your teams current needs.  If you need a high quality scoring winger, you can find precisely the player you need, buy them and immediately boost you teams skill.  Secondly, you have a much wider variety of players on the market to choose from, allowing you to build your dream team much easier.

omestic players tend to offer much more limitations, especially if you are from a smaller nation which has no league of their own.  By focussing on domestic players, you may find yourself being forced to use the Sports Academy rather than the market, which can give you much slower team growth and of course the game of chance with the Sports Academy means you might have weeks where you get no players good enough for your team.  The upside however is that by building a strong domestic team, you have more players available for National Senior and Youth Teams.

So which do you go with?  Personally, I am a firm believer that balance is the key to a good team, and a good blend of both foreign and domestic players can be the best way to build a truly good team.  If you get a solid player on the S.A., be sure to give them regular ice time and build to their strengths.  Have a hole on your team that needs filling? Don't be afraid to hit the market and spend a few bucks finding a great player.

Do you have a thought on this topic?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Building a strong team in the Powerplay Manager game is a process of balance.  You need to put together a team of the right players, train them to the best of their abilities and position and build an infrastructure around your team to support their growth now and into the future.  Too often I hear about people who have create a winning team in their first season, only to have to fall apart around their knees in seasons following.  Generally, upon taking a better look at their team the eason for this "internal destruction" is not because of their team, but the managers lack of solid arena and facility infrastructure.

You might be wondering what exactly "is" infrastructure.  It's the foundations that holds your team together.  Sure, you could go on the market and build a team of 200+ OR players.  You could probably fill your staff positions with 40+ OR staff, but will that team win this season?  Next season?  How about the season after?  You will find that in the seasons to come, the top managers wont be those who are putting up big numbers right now, but the managers who take the time to build the foundations of their team; their arena and their facilities.

You have 7 facilities within your arena:

• Training Facility
• Regeneration Facility
• Human Resources and Economic Department
• Maintenance Center
• Education Center
• Sports Academy
• Medical Center

I am going to break each of these down, in the order of importance according to my style of game play.  I should point out that what i consider to be the order of priority for these facilities may not be the same as others, however I will explain my reasoning as we move forward.