After a short registration, the user receives a team. Nearly always, the newbie takes over someone's old, defunct team, on the last positions on the league and, with a initial set of players, a coach, a small stadium, fanclub, and many other features, he must try to win the following matches. After that, he starts to manage his squad, sell and purchase the players, define a training scheme... If he is sucessfull enough, he grants qualification to a higher league the next three-months-long season.
There is much of customization an user can do to his own team, such as renaming the arena, changing the training type, or even acquiring a new coach. But, as with any manager game, he must tell his players what position to play, and how to play that position, if he wants to be sucessfull.
The game community is one of the most wonderful aspects of Hattrick. Interacting with the other Hattrickers is very enjoyable. Nearly all of the active members in the community are very helpful to newbies, and there is a lot of knowledge to be acquired from these veteran players.
Another great thing about Hattrick is that it is always under development. The game masters are constantly adding new features to the game and enhancing the current ones. They always listen to the users' wishes and, often, those wishes are incorporated into the game in some form or another.
Hattrick's leading leagues are Sweden, Canada, the USA, Netherlands, Argentina and Switzerland, although countries such as Poland, Estonia, Finland, Romania and Germany, among many others, are heading for the top positions. The first country to win an international trophy besides Sweden (which has the advantage of time) was Romania.
There are many third party softwares avaiable to help and enhance the user's gaming experience, such as match viewers and team administrators.
External Links
Hattrick: http://www.hattrick.org/
Criollo Viewer (match viewer): http://www.criolloviewer.com.ar/
HattrickPoli (administration tool): http://www.hattrickpoli.com/
Hattrick Assistant Manager (administration tool): http://www.lokesoftware.dk/osr/hattrick/ham/
Mactrick (administration tool for Macs): http://www.x-sync.co.uk/mactrick/
Sources:
http://www.hattrick.org/
http://www.omgn.com/reviews.php?Item_ID=9&Offset=0