I thought I'm winning my games because of my formations and tactics, but sorry to say

[Al Svanberg]

Sunil- I actually think that are some great health signs from the game. Just shows that we all are looking for different things from a game like this!

Take this scenarios in real life, how do you think they would affect games:
-Mourinho tells his player to look for passing the ball up the right side if they have the opportunity, but then puts a team on the field with no MR/AMR. Do you a) think that Smalling and co. would send the ball up the ride side just giving it away, or b) pass to someone else instead?
-One team has had a tough schedule and is playing a team that has had an easy schedule. Is it a given that the well rested team wins?
-Mourinho tells his team to attack at every opportunity they get, will Smalling and co make dumb decisions?

I am not saying that it is wrong, but many obviously want this to be more than a realistic "manager" game. They want it to be more like Chess or Clash Royale, where you -- control -- the out-come of the game.

Nevio Scala is a tremendously successful former coach of Parma in Serie A. I think he won just short of 10 titles in Italia and Europe with that team, still many of his ex-players will claim that he knows nothing about soccer. They will say, with Scala as the coach the players have to coach themselves. He picked the team, said some dumb things, the players sat silently when he talked and then looked at each other thinking we will figure something out. I don't know anything about that, but fact of a matter is that many coaches have won titles at places and then failed tremendously at other places because they really wasn't good coaches to start it. Other times, the coach can be a great factor for his team winning a title, or do a heroic job and see his team relegated.

I have seen many players claim that there is something wrong with the game because they cannot "mess" their team up. "Even if I give them stupid orders they will not give the game away?" But seriously, if a "real" coach gives a "real" player a "stupid" order, what will he do?

I had this debate with another poster that was tremendously frustrated with his players making short passes despite him ordering them to make short passes. How could they make short passes when he ordered them to make long passes??? I checked the Premier league stats.

R -- Team Long Balls pg --Short Passes pg -- Short Passes %
1 Watford 80 308 79,4%
2 Crystal Palace 74 293 79,8%
3 Norwich 74 313 80,9%
4 Everton 73 405 84,7%
5 Leicester 72 282 79,7%
6 Sunderland 71 270 79,2%
7 West Bromwich Albion 71 255 78,2%
8 Manchester United 71 461 86,7%
9 West Ham 70 332 82,6%
10 Newcastle United 69 333 82,8%
11 Tottenham 68 427 86,3%
12 Aston Villa 67 341 83,6%
13 Southampton 67 355 84,1%
14 Bournemouth 67 394 85,5%
15 Swansea 65 419 86,6%
16 Stoke 63 371 85,5%
17 Liverpool 63 460 88,0%
18 Chelsea 62 461 88,1%
19 Manchester City 56 487 89,7%
20 Arsenal 49 513 91,3%

It shows what I am trying to say, Watford, making by far the most long balls in the PL, made short passes 80% of the time as opposed to Arsenal (the team making the most short passes) making them 90% of the time. The difference in the real world is that the team making the most long passes -- in 1 of 10 situations will pass long instead of short compared to the team making the most short passes. So if there was an option for "Extreme Long Passing Style" and one for "Extreme Short Passing Style", if the game was realistic, the result would be that one made a long pass once in 10 passes more.