Team gets overawed by higher reputation teams

Hey all as the title states I'm managing Bayern Munich and my side keeps struggling against teams of higher reputation how do I counter this ? My squad is more than capable matching anyone in my league or europe I have one of the best forwards in the world in Torres and some of the best midfielders around not to mention great defenders, yet i still come up short against higher reputations. Any ideas ?

Say things like "no pressure" in your team talks.

"no pressure", "you can win this game" and on special occasions "do it for the fans" team-talks often help players perform against higher-rep teams

Another way of dealing with this is don't show the opposition too much respect.

In my save, I was getting this feedback a lot and rightly so. I was sometimes trying to be too clever, playing defensive / counterattacking tactics, and just ended up inviting pressure.

I decided to start attacking top teams, even when away from home - and it paid big dividends.

Attack.

I tend to find that taking small unfavoured clubs up the leagues is quite simple. Teams tend to play more offensively against me when they're favourites, which suits my offensive natured tactics fine.

It's lower reputation teams I find harder to break down, when they're getting ten men behind the ball and I have to draw them out by playing deeper, or counter attacking.

As for team talks, when I've played much bigger sides in cup competitions, I've used "no pressure" or "enjoy the game".

Field a team of reserves against the big teams. I know this might sound stupid and a definite way of losing but it gives the oppo a motivational problem.

I did it with Brighton against Manchester City in the cup, told them 'no pressure' and we won 3-1. Try it mate see what happens...

Cheers I'll try out some of these suggestions.

I often think that press confrences have way to much impact on the game. If you say the wrong thing you're team is screwed and in reality I don't really think players pay that much attention to managers press confrences. Unless your name is Kevin Keegan of course who practicaly had a breakdown!