Nervousness

[Karnack]

I've been trying to understand why and when a player get nervous but I can't seem to find any reasonable explanations. Can someone explain this scenario for example:

5th game of the season, we are occupying 1st position in a modified Swedish league. Our players have just arrived, supposedly high on confidence after beating the expect league winners with 5-0.

I start with the same line-up and I tell them to "Continue where they left off!" in a calm voice.

The opposition is AIK, currently 10th in the league and we have no relationship to the club other than that we play in the same league.

The game starts. About 5 minutes in, The entire front three turn to Nervous or Very Nervous. 

15 min in and we are totally dominating AIK, just not scoring, but they have had 0 shots. The front three plus 1 midfielder and then entire back 5 turns to Nervous or Very Nervous.

We miss some easy chances, our primary creator shoots every time he get's the ball, doesn't even look for openings anymore, he is so Very Nervous.

Half time. I tell them all to relax, the result will take care of itself.

At this point we have 20 shots, 11 on goal and 3 CCCs whilst AIK have 3 shots 1 on goal.

Second half is a mess. I eventually sub three of the most Nervous players but the subs instantly turn to Nervous/Very Nervous.

AIK manage another shot on goal and converts it.

We manage another 5 and doesn't convert it. The team is just dying from nervousness.

Why? What did AIK do that turned my Professional squad into a Very Nervous mess?

 

Team is Professional, I have 0 players that doesn't enjoy Big Games and everyone is Good or higher morale wise.

[herne79]

Player moods can be a bit of a dark art.  Perhaps they don't handle pressure very well.  Perhaps their relationship with you could be better.  Perhaps they didn't respond well to being told to pick up where they'd left off.  Perhaps you could have used in match shouts to help them.  Perhaps you could have been more assertive.  Perhaps any number of things.

However, from how you describe things above the player's reactions do seem to be relatively severe and it's those sort of reactions which can be hard to replicate during testing.  I'm not calling "bug" here but it might be useful to start a thread and upload a pkm of the match in the Match Engine Issues Forum for SI to investigate and see if anything might be overtuned.  Start a thread, copy/paste your post above and attach a match pkm .

In the mean time, have a look through your player's profiles to see if there is anything mentioned about pressure or their relationship with you.  You could also check your assistant manager's feedback in case there is any more information contained there.

And in the Tactics forum we also have a rough guide to touchline team talks:

 

[Andrew_Goats_Gruff]

I find not giving a team talk eases pressure, but when a player is still nervous.

[craigd84]

I just aggressively tell them "i expect a win" in 95% of games.

 

However a little tip, how you speak to the media is how you should speak to your players. If its assertive  keep it as assertive.