How did he win?

[P.F.C. Stompwijk]

I knew it! That's why my opponents with illegal formations NEVER get 20% ball possession.

[Cat Harrison]

Pretty sneaky

[Saransh Vatsa]

Found myself in a similar position. I managed to draw my league match against a team 7 quality less in the very last minute. All my players went in with above 90 cnd. I used 3-1-3-1-2 formation with normal tackling and hard attacking. The match drew 2-2. I was really angry as I didn't know why??? Is it possible that he used win bonus and so his performance improved? But can it increase by that much?

[Prince Umair]

Found myself in a similar position. I managed to draw my league match against a team 7 quality less in the very last minute. All my players went in with above 90 cnd. I used 3-1-3-1-2 formation with normal tackling and hard attacking. The match drew 2-2. I was really angry as I didn't know why??? Is it possible that he used win bonus and so his performance improved? But can it increase by that much?

i think you were penalised by getting 20% possession ..if you could use 4 defenders instead of that 3 then you could easily win..
4-1-2-1-2 narrow diamond was a better idea instead of 3-1-3-1-2...Some months ago,i faced an opponent with 3-1-3-1-2 and i used 4-1-2-1-2 and he was penalised by 20% and i won 3-0..Good Luck!

[spornybol]

I think a bribery inquiry is coming

[Incredipede]

The winner definitely started with the illegal formation and changed it during the game. It is really the only explanation. That and he got lucky as 3-5-2 is a solid formation. Without being there to watch the game, you really cannot ever know, unless you look at the actual players and their positions, which we cannot do with screenshots.

The fact that you really outweighed him quality-wise, just means that its a normal unlucky NGE outcome...although I usually see this happen more often for visiting teams than home teams...

If I start a match with 3-2-2-2-1 Butterfly and change to 4-5-1V while the match is running, the statistics after the match say that I've used 4-5-1V, not 3-2-2-2-1 Butterfly. It looks like the statistics show the last used formation in the match.

This means that this guy could have changed to an illegal formation in the last minutes of the game which would make sense. It could be that he had 47% possession before and because of the illegal formation in the last minutes of the game, the possession dropped to 43%.

That's what I experienced, but I could be wrong. I'm not exactly sure that it shows the last used formation but my brain says so. However I got proof on a game, I started with 4-1-3-2 and then changed to 4-1-2-1-2 Narrow Diamond, it shows 4-1-2-1-2 as used formation.

[Morgan O'Bree]

If I start a match with 3-2-2-2-1 Butterfly and change to 4-5-1V while the match is running, the statistics after the match say that I've used 4-5-1V, not 3-2-2-2-1 Butterfly. It looks like the statistics show the last used formation in the match.

This means that this guy could have changed to an illegal formation in the last minutes of the game which would make sense. It could be that he had 47% possession before and because of the illegal formation in the last minutes of the game, the possession dropped to 43%.

That's what I experienced, but I could be wrong. I'm not exactly sure that it shows the last used formation but my brain says so. However I got proof on a game, I started with 4-1-3-2 and then changed to 4-1-2-1-2 Narrow Diamond, it shows 4-1-2-1-2 as used formation.

not exactly.

The pic showing the last formation used is the one which remains after the match's end if you followed it. But opening it from "fixtures" tab will give you the starting formations, and not the final ones used at 90'.