Checking your Xpert team Ranking

One thing everyone in Xpert wants to do is to achieve a good ranking. There are various things that help your ranking but one thing that is crucial is to be able to check how many ranking points you received from a game.

Rating points explained

When managers play games with their official team they receive rating points. The points score in the last 6 months (the player's ranking cycle) are added together and then rankings are calculated based on who has the most points.

Points are also translated into the skill bars you see - but like many things in X11 it's not overly straightforward. Odd number bars have 27 points per bar. Even numbered bars have 33 points per bar - presumably this is X11's even number rounding system. The following table is manager points for the number of bars:

Skill Bars	Manager Points
4	0-32
5	33-59
6	60-92
7	93-119
8	120-152
9	153-179
10	180-212
11	213-239
12	240-272
13	273-299
14	300-332
15	333-359
16	360-392

Obviously it's easy to see how many bars you have and to know the approximate number of points you have, but that's not massively useful. What we need to do is find the exact number of points.

Calculating your exact number of manager points

Calculating the exact number of manager points is fiddly and can take a few minutes but it's not hard. What happens is everyone with the same number of manager points is given the same rank. You need to find how many of these ranking levels there are between you and the next ranking bar below (r above) and you know your exact points.

To do this you need to be a VIP and search for managers by ranking points. Depending on your ranking there could be 100+ people on the same ranking step as you - not much fun to search through so I tend to search for a specific country to reduce the number on the same point. EG if you search for English managers you get approx 1/6 of all managers, reducing that 100 figure to around 17.

Here's an example screen done just for English manages. Note there are approx 30 players each on the same ranking levels. If you look more closely you will see the managers ranked at 1860 have 10 bars whereas the managers at 1826 all have 11 bars. These managers are on the first rung of the 11-bar ladder so have 213 manager points.

This lets you easily check the exact number of manager points you have at any given time. Actually that isn't entirely true - once you get to around 14 bars there isn't always somebody on each rung of the ladder so the system stops working after a while

Calculating manager points from a match

If you are able to calculate your manager points at any given time then you can calculate how many points you gained (or lost) from a given match. You need to be careful for matches coming off your ranking cycle so it's best to check on the day of the match then the following day after rankings are recalculated.

Once you can check how many points you get for a match you can see what formation & tactical options work well for increasing your ranking.

Referees - Basics

In XpertEleven playing to the referee is one of the most important tactical choices. The 3 main areas of tactics that depend on the referee are:

• Aggression
• Cheating
• Offside Traps

The 2 attributes of a referee are Skill (S) and Harshness (H) and these range from 1-9.

Aggression

The general rule of thumb with aggression is you should play Bruise with H1-3, Normal for H4-6 and Careful with a H7-9 referee.

Cheating

Cheating can be more subtle than aggression but a simple rule would be cheat with a referee of S1-5. It is also beneficial fielding players with the cheat SQ, especially as a playmaker.

Offside Traps

OST is again dependent on skill and a general rule would be any referee with skill and hardness both above 5 wil give benefits when playing OST.

Referee List

Al Beback	S6, H3
Al Reddy	S7, H7
Ann Onym	S6, H4
Charlie Fender	S2, H1
Constance Paine	S2, H9
Dick Tator	S8, H8
Donald Scott	S3, H6
Frank Redkard	S4, H8
George Buske	S2, H9
Hans Grüber	S5, H9
Hugh Cango	S2, H2
Ian Hartman	S4, H4
Irre Levant	S5, H6
Justin Thyme	S5, H7
Laura Norder	S7, H4
Luke Bribe	S3, H3
Manuel Ficuz	S2, H8
Michael Steen	S7, H2
Robert Nixon	S8, H6
Seymour Red	S3, H8
Stellan Offsajed	S3, H7
Sten Koll	S9, H5
Tony Nolan	S9, H9
Travis Tee	S6, H4
Wanda Rinn	S7, H2
Warren Peace	S5, H5
Will Taykabribe	S3, H5

Finding underevals in the official leagues

It is possible to actively seek out undereval players in the official leagues - but it does take a lot of effort and patience. If it works out it can be very profitable.

When players are sold they undergo a mini-CR. That is to say thier skill level is adjusted based on the portion of the season played, DV gained etc. As you get a link to the player at their original club (blue link players) it's possible to see much of this information and make in informed judgement before evaluating a player. The following areas need exploring.


Matches played

If a player hasn't played any matches then they have no ME, minimal DV and won't gain a positive mini-CR. Indeed they will likely lose something when transferred. You need to see what proportion of the season a team has played and ideally players need to have played that proportion of the games they need to gain "100% DV".

An example might be a 17/4 player in a 10 bar team. The player might need around 300 minutes playtime over the course of the season. If they are sold at the midway point of the season you really need 150+ minutes playtime on them. If they are sold with more matchtime than this then that makes the chances of being undereval higher.

Be wary of teams just after the CR. it may show a player has had a lot of games but in reality they might just have had a CR and not played any games int he current season.


Previous games

Check out the previous games. Many coaches might bring a sub on 5 minutes from the end of several games. This looks liek the player has had 3 or 4 games but in reality he might only have had 20 minutes.

Team form & player performances

For a player to gain a good Cr they need good form. Only the manager of the team knows this but you can have clues. If you look at the team's form and it it high then it's likely that player has high form - and has had throughout the season. Similarly if the team form is low then probably all players have been neglected equally.

If you look at a player's past performances then regularly playing to his skill level or better is an indication of good form. Be wary of vastly fluctuating performances - the often indicate a moody player, not good form.

Look at previous season

Previous seasons can be a big clue to a player's skill level. If a player jumped in skill the last season after just playing 1 or 2 games it's likely they are low in their skill band to begin with. If a player jumped based on 10 games then maybe they had high DV and are high in their band.

Stage of the season

Players rarely jump on transfer in less than 4 matchdays in the official leagues. The later in the season the more chance there is to jump - as long as they have played enough minutes.

Evaluate

If everything looks good evaluate the player. Occasionally players who aren't underevals may still be worth buying as they can be high in their skillband so good DJ candidates.

Farming

Player farming is where you buy an undereval player one season and then try to sell him for a profit the same season. There is a minimum time of 1 month before you can list a player. Usually you need to list a player for below the average price as a lot of leagues may not be able to bid on the player.

Youth Academy Investments

Investing in the Youth Academy (YA) can be an important decision for your team. Generally speaking it's difficult to make a profit from the YA, but that's not the only reason to invest. You might want to invest for roleplaying reasons, for the chance of a great player or because you don't feel comfortable with the transfer market.

The Youth Academy graph from the rules shows the distribution of player skills at 17yo for different

levels of investment. You can see there is a massive benefit in paying just 50k/week into the YA and beyond this it's diminishing returns. Broadly speaking you need to invest around 100k to get a similar return to pre-YA days.

Don't be fooled into thinking it will all be brilliant. Even with a maximum 300k investment 5-star academy only 17% of 17yo youths are 4 skill and under 2% are 5-skill.