Quote Originally Posted by Cloverfield View Post
I cannot really emphasize enough that going to a final with hard tackling especially from beginning is really really really bad decision.
I never use hard tackling.
There are some refs in some games that give easy yellow-red cards. If you had fallen in such case then you would play with 10 players from 10'.
Your fouls were 16 against 10 , maybe your AM also pointed out this that you should stop giving so many fouls to the oppo.

Also I see that your defenders have no aerial abality or defensive wall.
No defensive wall but you chose to give so many fouls, bad decision again.(although you did not conceded a free kick)
Check you oppo's defenders they all have SAs, that could help him.
Maybe next season you could work on that.

So short story long.
Hard tackling was bad decision and it seems key factor especially for the penalties.
You both played for 90' minutes with evenly counter formations.
Oppo had few more shots on target which increased his chance to score.

Also I doubt the "Things were so far going well."
Don't trust live animations. Trust statistics and ratings.
What were the stats at that point? What were your players ratings?
Maybe things were getting bad you just did not check stats.
Thanks for the feedback Clover:

- Tackling: I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. You say you never go with hard tackling, but I normally go with it because I've discovered that even just normal tackling results in a lot more goals conceded even if I have good defenders and a theoretically good formation from my research. I suppose I should take your advice and try normal tackling the next time I'm in a final but in normal play I would probably stick with hard.

- Special Abilities: It's true that my players have no Wall SA. However my defenders all rate with skills in the 140-150%+ range. I would think that should be good enough...is it not? Are SA's that critical to success?

- Regarding the stats at the time I opened the scoring: Yes my players were rating solid high 6's to mid 7's at the time I scored and statistically I had a bit more in the shots department. This is why I feel like besides hard tackling, some other tactics change I made in response to my opponent's switch to 4-5-1 Flat was bad, and I'm hoping someone with experience can tell me what that is.