Doomed to loose ....

Hi ...

Hope this is the right thread. Been searching the forum, but couldn't find any post describing this subject ...

I have for the better part of the holyday season been busy fighting Arsenal on their home turf. Same match, over and over again. Testing. The match drew my attention, when it ended with a loss of 5-0 during av good spell lasting more than half a year, where I been using an adapted version of the GivingItLaldy DMs High Tempo tactic. First year went fine crowned with av league title. The second year started off the same way. Win after win, mixed with a few draws.

Then I met Arsenal in a away game. Bang, what a loss. 5-0!!

So I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more, and saved the game as a testgame.

Noe I have rerun this match a few dozen times, and every time I have lost with at least two goals. In the few times I have managed to make a difference, and actually score a goal, I have lost big time, due to red cards, or injuries.

I have tried a well of more or less tactics the players been at least competent with. I have tried with a well of different instructions, and without. I have changed, and even removed players instructions. I have tried all this combined with all possible settings of team shape and mentality.

The numbers of shots have been radically opposite of what I was used to. Arsenal have won with as much ac 29-1 in shots. Before this game, it used to be quite on the contrary.

Opponents like Dinamo, Barcelona, Bayern has been held to at least a draw.

I understand that the game has to take into consideration that a side cannot go on winning eternally, an put a stop to a long run of success.

This small test of mine tells me that I am not the boss of this game. The engine is. And if the engine don't want you to win, you will not.

If everything I try, do not have an effect, whatsoever, on the result, I must say, I am very disappointed.

Anyone have a comment on this?

It's an old argument.. and it's false..

You are losing because the circumstances leading up to that match have all come together to put the odds against you.. that's not to say you can't change something and win the game, it's just that the chances are, everything up to the point you've saved means you will lose 9 times out 10 or whatever..

I'm sure if you made your save available, I or someone else would show you that you can win, so it's not a case of the game cheating you and making you lose.. just that everything previously before has stacked the odds against... which is pretty much the case irl too..

Take any game irl and if you could replay the exact circumstances over and over again changing a few things just before the match day, the same team would no doubt come out on top.

Having said that, I will be monitoring this thread as it will result in the same old arguments about the game apparently cheating you blah blah blah.

I have for the better part of the holyday season been busy fighting Arsenal on their home turf. Same match, over and over again. Testing.

So I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more, and saved the game as a testgame.

IMO you'll learn next to nothing from replaying the same match over & over.

This small test of mine tells me that I am not the boss of this game. The engine is. And if the engine don't want you to win, you will not.

If everything I try, do not have an effect, whatsoever, on the result, I must say, I am very disappointed.

Anyone have a comment on this?

As Welsh has said previous factors have led to a situation/match where you stand a small % chance of winning on average.

As a manager the choices you make swing those chances either in your favour or against you, your job is to give your team the best chance of winning. Upload your save as Welsh has also said and someone win win the match relatively quickly.

I also want to comment on this sentence though: "This small test of mine tells me that I am not the boss of this game". You are never the boss of the game and thinking that is a problem in itself. You give instructions to one team that is on the pitch nothing more so at the most you have control of 50% of a match but in practice you actually have less than that as that control is indirect.

Anyone have a comment on this?

Yes, don't reload the same game over and over.

Dave, you're starting to get to that stage where your posts have stopped being close to helpful and are verging on spam ... last thing we want is to start infracting active members of the forum... but please, help us out .

One the opposite end of the scale I played a game won 6-1 then the game crashed, loaded it back up replayed the same game for a 4-0 loss and my star midfielder's knee exploding.

Personally I believe that you upload the save someone will win the match before the end of the day.

So I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more

You're right, it is a great opportunity to learn more, but not in the way you may think.

Rather than reloading and replaying the game over and over, just load up the match that you lost 5-0 and watch that over. Why did your players underperform? What happened in that particular match that made you lose so unexpectedly? And here's the thing - why didn't you make changes when you saw what was happening?

And one final thought - sometimes, no matter what you do, your team will have an off day and you'll lose. It happens even to the best teams and managers. When you do lose, simply try to understand why you lost and learn from that experience. You'll learn much more from that than trying to replay games with random tactical settings you start throwing at your team.

It's an old argument.. and it's false..

You are losing because the circumstances leading up to that match have all come together to put the odds against you.. that's not to say you can't change something and win the game, it's just that the chances are, everything up to the point you've saved means you will lose 9 times out 10 or whatever..

I'm sure if you made your save available, I or someone else would show you that you can win, so it's not a case of the game cheating you and making you lose.. just that everything previously before has stacked the odds against... which is pretty much the case irl too..

Take any game irl and if you could replay the exact circumstances over and over again changing a few things just before the match day, the same team would no doubt come out on top.

Having said that, I will be monitoring this thread as it will result in the same old arguments about the game apparently cheating you blah blah blah.

never mind.

So everything happening before the match is more important than the tactics and players i choose?

Its not that simple.

If what happens in the previous few weeks makes most of your squad complacent then it won't make much difference what players you choose. Part of your job as manager is to manage the mentality of your players so that they are in the right frame of mind for a match.

It doesn't matter how good the player is or how solid a tactic is if a player is in the wrong frame of mind he is going to play worse. If several players are playing worse at the same time then you are going to have an issue like the OP.

Just for remark, perhaps it might be of interest of someone because of this discussion.

Scientists in the fields of math, statistics, sports, psychology etc. have studied the fenomenon of "winning streaks" and "losings streaks". In more broad terms - success and failures, but statistical data is easily accessible in different sports. There are so called winner-phenomen and loser-phenomen. Each win adds confidence, which in turn disheartens your opponent and so possibility of adding another win is higher each turn. Also, losing confidence after lost match makes you doubt in your ability and be more nervous, so winning the next match becomes harder and hardes.

So, in OP example - you have to consider who are your opponent and if they are on the winning streak, you have to acknowledge that they could be really difficult to beat regardless of your tactics or instructions.

Now, having said that, there is one general rule. As logic predicts, confidence can overgrow to complacency during long winning streaks. Winning streaks are bound to end sometimes and often they end with surprising loss against weaker/smaller side or in a match that you should win easily. But these losses happen. On the other side - losing streaks are not infinite, but cutting your losing streak is a lot harder than breaking a winning streak (it can, in sports, of course be due to the fact that losing team IS objectively weakest teams in terms of player skills and ability and therefore their chances to win next match is lower than 50% even without taking into account their confidence and mental mindset before match). So, if you're going downhill, it's VERY difficult to turn things around (and we see it IRL even in the biggest football teams like Chelsea this season!), while winning streak can help you keep winning for a good period, but then it gets harder and harder NOT to slip.