My oppo on CL final tried to do the same thing. He added me one day before the final but I rejected. He added me again, then I waited to play (and win) the final before rejecting againglad I did it, maybe I would have got trolled.
 
			
			My oppo on CL final tried to do the same thing. He added me one day before the final but I rejected. He added me again, then I waited to play (and win) the final before rejecting againglad I did it, maybe I would have got trolled.
 
			
			Maybe something wrong or maybe the game just want to ruin your treble, it was happen to my team 2 season ago. Now my team achieve treble beating 150 mutant team, im not saying im better as my team is 120 team, im just lucky and "maybe this is my time lol". But in assoc match, im beaten over and over by lower rate team. Time to rise in normal match, down in assoc match lol.
 
			
			This part at least: I think that since he is a level below you, what appears to you to be a 105% overall quality team is a 125% team at his level. On occasion, the game interface will show you the as-is stats of a team or player without adjusting for the level difference. As you said however, when you restarted, the interface correctly adjusted his quality to reflect the level difference (as if his team had just promoted and lost a star).
TropikThunder
Seasons: 16
Level: 16
League Titles: 8 / Runner-up 2
Champions League Titles: 4 / Runner-up 3
Cup Winners: 4 / Runner-up 2
Trebles: 1
Play with honor, win or lose. #NeverTanker
It seems you may be right. The difference between 105 and 125 is exactly 20% so it is quite possible that the game simply considered his quality on his level. The question now is why it happens and if this affects the match itself
Also need to agree with this according to my experience. I always easily win 3-4 trebles in a row winning easily even against much better opponents but after that for some 4-5 seasons my players suddenly play like crap losing to the last places of the league, etc.
As for the trolling and randomness of the game - the end of the previous season was crazy in troll results. In my first 3 weeks my players were playing in god mode and I had only 1 defeat in the second day of the season in my 2 cup match. The 1st away match I easily won 0-4 and in home game was lucky to escape the problems during last minutes of the game scoring the goal 1-4. This was the definite trolling as the difference between the teams was great but in the 2nd game I couldn't do anything playing just with the same tactics. That was my only defeat in 3 first weeks.
The pick of the troll results was during the last week when I lost 4 matches and got 3 draws out of 10 matches playing with the last teams of the league. And if previously the number of such results during the season was 2 max 3 during the last 2-3 seasons the number of such matches increased to 8-10 each season.
Just hope for some changes in TE2019 (if it certainly comes which I really doubt recently). But 6 years experience of the game tells that all the updates bring only new problems
 
			
			I did this on purpose against main rival... Lost on friendlies, but smashed em on real match...
Seems now we can find the use of friendlies...
 
			
			This "treble nemesis" happened to me 4 or 5 times this year. A flawless series of victories and sudenly, out of nowhere, came this defeat against this kind of oppo (one level below you, 20-30% lower quality, active but not playing the games) that ruined your treble hopes. I am sure this is a pattern that was implemented to the game. About the "friend" trick, I always reject friendship applications that come just before a match against the manager's team.