Those questions have been "answered" many times, and still now nobody is sure about them. Don't smash your head on the wall too much, eveything is unpredictable. I wrote many rants lately because I have a 8* star teams, full SA, usually playing full 99% condition and morale, full bonus, and still get f****ed during cup or association games, while the league is a breeze.

Why is that? Nobody knows and of all the answers you will get, everyone has a personal theory or idea, so don't take them for granted.
My last discovey is that the simulation is not "really" happening, but is just a visual representation. So I think that even the SA icons appearing in the game would be fake. I have players that never use them, others do. We still don't know if there's one working for each player, if it's based on his skills or what. We still don't have an ingame chat outside the associations or options about specific attacking strategies. Counter formations just don't work.
On top of that, stats don't reflect at all the final result.

I pretty much gave up, if I'm still there is just for the association that I don't feel like to leave for now. Otherwise I would be playing all the other football managers in the app stores which make much more sense and at least give you explanations and advices. TE and Nordeus are lagging behind very badly.