There have been situations where I've made a key tactical change and the match has turned on its head, for example changing to through the middle instead of down the flanks, or short instead of long/mixed passing. So I have little belief in the 'the match is predetermined' theory.
I think it's more a set of stages where there's an electronic die roll or coin toss, and a series of poor rolls or tosses means the match slowly runs away from you. Conversely, a poor start and a series of good rolls or tosses means that a the match turns around on its own. Any tactical/personnel changes made by the manager who is present produces a 'modifier' to the die roll or coin toss to make various situations less or more likely, thus influencing the course of the match. This theory is boosted by the extended pauses I've noticed in the matchplay at around the 28th, 51st and 81st minutes, when the game seems to be 'thinking' before processing the next part of the match.
The 'Troll' result, the incidence of poor-Q 'away' teams winning Cup/CL Finals and my particular bugbear, the 6th Round CL Group match 'shock result' can be put down to an underlying bug in the match setup, maybe a '-' instead of a '+' (or
vice versa) in the match setup routine, which gives the managerless poor-Q team an artificial boost when the match starts, which is then exacerbated by poor die rolls or coin tosses during the match.
Discuss...