Really? Try playing the game on default then without making it miles easier with sliders. We're essentially playing two different games, yet you quite rudely and unenccearily claim I'm the one with all the problems.
Here's an example. I beat Newcastle 3-0 at home. I then beat Newcastle 5-0 at St James' Park. Two matches later I played them in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley - right from the off they were sprinting faster than all my players, knocking all my players off the ball, a totally transformed team, not in any way down to football but because they could run faster and won EVERY tackle. Every loose ball fell to them, and despite me beating them 8-0 in my previous two games they went into a ridiculous 3-0 lead after just half an hour. The best bit? The 70-something rated Newcastle left back scoring a 35-yard bycicle kick. And people on here claim it doesn't boost? Do me favour.
If people claim it doesn't boost then try playing the game on default settings rather than making it easier via slider set ups.
Suuup is right that this game has its wild swings in difficulty. I play with default settings too, though on Legendary, and I've experienced what he's talking about: you can destroy a team one game, and get destroyed by them the next. Though this isn't
entirely unrealistic, it seems to lack any rhyme or reason. So I do agree with Suuup: these wild difficulty swings are one of the game's biggest faults and points of frustration.
That said, I don't think Suuup is quite right in the way he presents the problem, and no offense to him, I think you can still counter/contain the CPU when it goes into its "god" mode, most of the time at least. In fact, this is probably the first time ever that I'm finding Legendary (on default settings) to be slightly too easy, and if it weren't for these boosts or dramatic difficulty swings (or whatever you want to call it), I'd rarely if ever lose a game.
For me, the problem isn't the CPU boosting itself, because as others have explained, it's a necessary evil for simulating variety, but rather the issue is that the game's defensive flaws are more apparent when the CPU is on the top of its game; i.e. the boosts would be fine if the defensive system was up to snuff. I think that you could also argue that these boosts are necessary because unfortunately the CPU AI really isn't all that intelligent (so these boosts are a counter to the unfair intelligence advantage that all of us have vs the CPU).
And remember that all players, including yours, can receive slight boosts (or the opposite) prior to a game depending upon form, morale, press conference choices, and I think home/away and important match influences too. So it's not as if the CPU is the only beneficiary of these boosts (it's just that the CPU isn't limited by the some of the defensive shortcomings we must play with).
This is why I don't consider the CPU to be cheating, because all the boosts and tactical options that the CPU uses are available to us as well. The problem, again, is simply that the defensive system isn't quite capable enough (and is the reason for so many of the multiplayer complaints too, like lofted through balls).
