Huge amount of randomness?

I just had a LAN-game going with some buddies, and unfortunatly the game crashed during my first league match. I was Tottenham and playing against Arsenal at WHL. The first match was very even, and "ended" 2-2 in the 70th minute when the game crashed. Up to that point both teams had about 10 shots, and the game was very close.

So after the game crashed we loaded it up again two days before the match. Started to play the same match (same lineups etc.), but this time the result was totally different. Suddenly Arsenal owned me, and won the game 4-0 with 25-4 in shots and about 7-0 in clear cut chances. This ruined some of the joy in the game for me, as it made FM09 seem unbelieveble random...

That's not just on FM09 it's previous versions also.

If you replay that match again 100 times, you could have 100 different score lines. It's impossible to keep everything the same if you suffer an unfortunate crash mid-game.

I'm aware that the scoreline can't be the same. That would have been even worse. But that those two matches could get so totally different, that's what upsets me.

That's football isn't it? This weekend Fulham held Liverpool, Newcastle held Chelsea and Villa held Man U. I'd place a good bet on each of the 'bigger' teams getting a much better result if the games were replayed.

I guess it is a case of randomness, but it is influenced by how the computer rolls logarithms or something. Each player has abilities and the game will run programs that compare one player against another etc. This will result in some players having a bad day and some not. That would change every time the program is run.

I'd also bet that should you run that game again, then you might even get Tottenham trouncing Arsenal.

It would be a dull game if the result of every match was written deep in code, i.e. Arsenal must always beat Tottenham or Southamption must always beat Bournemouth (as if they could).