I'm with you on the play by play, plan to pay more attention to individual plays myself. (There may be interesting conclusions about stories like team with many failed corner attempts with no receiver).

I mentioned on another thread I am wondering about a semi-complex "decision tree" as a main gameplay mechanism. If that were the case, each decision or action could have a specific condition loss associated with the players involved.

For a loose example, play starts from goalie with long kick to ML, ML receives and dribble fast, makes a cross while st tries to sprint to break his mark, st fails to receive and opposing DC wins skill check to clear the ball. In this case, goalie might lose .5 "units", ML .7 and st 1; opposing DC might lose 1, and a base of .2 for players away from the play; add modifier for pressing, mentality. Players who succeeded in their piece of decisions would improve rating, others fall.