Couldn't it also simulate a certain set of scenarios, or just do the big crunch(calculations) in these 3 minutes and lload a gameplan with one or a few variables open that could influence the result? Like possession for instance, as thats closely related to you and/or your friends showing up or not and (hopefully not wishfull thinking) by you making the right or wrong subs.

I was pretty sure that I have been able to improve my stats drastically ingame early on when it showed I wasn't doing well. On the other hand, I too had the disconnect at penalty shootout to find out it was already over at reconnect a few secs later where they hadn't even started yet on dc. Like I said, I really hope that at half time for instance, there is a small recalculation based on changes made. I don't know if this is plausible as I'm no game/software engineer, but the recalculation at half time does seem to be an explanation that matches both experiences I/we have had.