View source for Underestimation

{{Template:Interwiki/Overconfidence}}
Opponent '''underestimation''' or '''overconfidence''' is a match event that occurs when a [[team]] severely underestimates the opponent and therefore their performance is worse than normal in that game. 

An underestimation event can happen in any [[league match from the fourth week until the second-last game of the season, but it does not happen in [[cup]] or [[friendly]] matches.

== Psychological match events ==
A Psychological events can have big impact on a specific match, but they do not by themselves affect the team spirit or [[confidence]] of future matches. 

The overconfidence check is done once before the match; if there is overconfidence, there will be a message about the players' attitude before the match begins.

The only way to completely avoid underestimation is to play 'match of the season'.

=== Causes ===
Again, usually it happens whenever you're facing a team in a worse position than yours and your confidence is strong or better; for example, when a team leading the series is playing a team in the bottom part of the table. 

The risk of underestimating your opponent is dependent on the points and position difference between the teams, your confidence level and your team attitude for the match, with the risk being greater when the difference between the teams is bigger and/or confidence is very high. 

The coach's mentality (if he's offensive, defensive or neutral) also plays a part.

=== Effects === 
<table width=100% style="border-collapse: collapse; border: 1px solid #efefef; background: #fefefe;">
<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[File:Magnifier.png]]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;''See for example: {{matchid|298364408|Overconfidence being overcome at halftime with a small lead in this match (298364408)}}</td></table>
If you do underestimate your opponent, the affected teams midfield rating is reduced between 15 and 20%. 
The points difference, confidence level, team attitude and whether you are home or away decides the exact amount of underestimation. 

It is possible for the coach to amend the effects of overconfidence during the match break;  if so, there is a mention in the match report at the beginning of the second half. However, this usually happens if the overconfident team is losing at half time: you'll see a full recovery if you're behind, 2/3 in the case of a draw and 1/3 if you have a narrow one goal lead.

In other words, a team performing unusually badly in the first half might get a telling off from the coach during the break, and pull themselves back together.

==Researches==
{{See|Sports psychologist}} 
{{based on opinion}}The way a game is played can affect players' behavior beyond the instructions set by the coach. 
Based on some research, overconfidence can happen when a team with a [[Denominations#Confidence_.2810.29|strong]] or better confidence plays a team at least five places below it in the series table (i.e. 1st vs 6-7-8th, 2nd vs 7-8th, and 3rd vs 8th). 

It is not known whether there is a higher chance for overconfidence to happen when the potentially overconfident squad plays [[Play it Cool|PIC]], but what is known is that it cannot happen when that potentially overconfident squad plays [[Match of the Season|MOTS]]. It is not clear yet whether [[winning streak]] is a factor, or if the level of [[sports psychologist]]s is; although [[HT-Tjecken]] explained on [[Forum|Global forum]] that psychologists should be fired when possible overconfidence can lead to problems:
{{textreport|width=60%|text=
'''Q:''' So overconfidence can happen more often. To prevent it I should hire the maximum number of psychologists, not fire them?<br>
'''A:''' Psychologists boost your confidence, they're not at all useful to lower it. So I should sack them in case of overconfidence and not hire more.
}}
However, it is perfectly possible for overconfidence to happen with no psychologists hired at all neither the week of the match nor the week before.

In some cases, overconfidence is not much of a problem because the winning team would win anyway; sometimes, however, an overconfidence event could decide to whom goes the series medal. Teams so affected decry their luck.

There are several confidence levels that sound like the team is acting overconfident (''slightly exaggerated, extremely exaggerated and completely exaggerated''), however, for some reason these never appear on the web pages nor in the XML files downloaded by [[CHPP]] applications. It might be related to such confidence levels being only reached while matches with overconfidence events are played, but due to the fact that team data is unavailable to download while matches are played, and the web pages hide confidence at that time, these denominations stay pretty much unused.
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== External links ==
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[[category:Game Concepts]]
[[category:evil]]