My theory is that it's about players roles, which you can not see. I'm talking about key players. They can be quite easily be seen in opponents team. They have high ratings and usually many goals and/or passes. Good managers can 'point' these roles to the players they want. Some managers get it right by accident (like not playing at all).

But it all begins in your own team. Players with high quality, but with poor ratings are just poor players. Player with poor quality, but good ratings is probably a key player. All you need to do is get those key player roles for right players.