Is there some kind of trick to winning cup finals / high pressure games?

I ask because I'm finding the Champion's League really tough to crack despite dominating the Premiership and, on paper, having probably the strongest first team in the world. My players just tend to get shut down in the finals and semi-finals, and create no chances, pass the ball directly to the opposition, dive into challenges without winning the ball, and just generally play to a much lower standard than I'm used to.

I'm wondering whether it's a tactical thing or my players are bottlers (or just bad luck maybe?)

can be a mixture of both. Are you playing different tactics in europe, i found that my 'league' tactic never would cut it unless i was playing a team from my country as other contries styles were just undoing me.

Also what does the motivation say next to the players during the match? If it is sitting at 'Playing nervously' etc it means that you need to adjust your team talks.

Adopt a more cautious approach to the game for the first hour and try and retain possession. Since you have the best first team in theory, they should be able to do that efficiently. Once you generate enough momentum you can go on the attack. It's the safest way to get by. You can also look at when the opposition conceeds the most goals and go into attack during that time frame. (Backroom advice isn't Completely useless if you use it right).

But at the end of the day its always about your ability to motivate your team, and if they aren't motivated, no matter what you do you won't have a good performance unless they somehow have a worst one. If you notice you gave the wrong talk, either substitute the individual off right away or if its the whole team, try and play defensively and just get to half time with no goals conceded. Try your team talks again and if you get it right, you can get away with a win.

Also, complacency could also be an issue because you have the strongest 1st team in the world, and you are winning week in week out in your league. Try to tell them not to get careless if you are leading with 1 goal or telling them you expect a win on a home game and maybe away as well if the other team is lower rep than you do (I just look at the odds for the game from the news).

Since these are CL semis and finals, you team has probably won the league and I tend to find it tougher to motivate my players to get into a pointless league match just before the CL. And then it cause the morale problem when they lose to a team at the bottom of the table just before a CL game and completely screw you up. What I usually do is simply go to private chat and tell my best players that I'm going to rest them and keep their morale high and use my backup + U19s kid to go into the league game. And since those backups are pumping up to show what they are capable of, I tend to get a win out of it from the league game (especially if it's a lower rep team, AI will play defensively and my team just need to keep pushing it for a goal) and my 1st team is all rest up for the CL as well with high morale, so it's a win-win situation IMO.

All good advice. Another thing that can be useful is having players that 'relish big games', these players get extra motivated for the big occassion's. You can find this out in scout reports and coach reports in the player strength's section. I like to avoid signing players that my scouts suggest do not enjoy the big occassion's, this information will be found in the player weaknesses section of reports.

Wear a suit.

Short answer: nope

You can however improve your chances by for example resting your key players before big continental games. It's expecially important towards the end of the season when star players seem to be most likely to pick up injuries just before finals / semifinals.

Wear a suit.

Legen-waitforit-dary!

Wear a suit.

Do this. It works.

Thanks for all the advice (although in the period between me starting the thread and the first reply being made I went and lost the Champion's League final 3-1 ).

To my recollection no-one had any notes about nervousness or complacency, virtually everyone had 'nothing specific noted' with one or two players 'playing with confidence' (this is both before and after half-time).

I must admit that I tend to employ the same tactics in Europe as I do domestically. The reason I never really bothered to develop a special Euro tactic is because I usually storm the group and early knock-out stages, and the strategy I use is honed to suit my squad near-perfectly. Also, I'm not convinced that it is a clash of styles thing, because last season I was knocked out by Man Utd in the semi's, who I usually have no problem rolling over in the Premiership and FA/League Cup. In fact, I'd played them in the Prem a few weeks prior and comfortably shut them down to a 2-0 away win, but everything just seemed to go wrong once we rematched in the CL.

Next time around I plan to rest some key players beforehand, and adopt a more cautious approach then attempt to exploit the period in which the opponent conceeds the most goals, as you advise. And wear my best suit. Cheers.