[WabeWalker1]

Here's something I've noticed about team selection: as long as the stars roughly match up between the two teams, then what's infinitely more important is the skill of the person you're playing against.

And I'm not talking about rank points or skill level or any of that nonsense.

I'm talking about plain skill.

With most of my matches I can tell pretty much within the first minute of play whether or not I'm going to be able to beat my opponent. Some people are just poor players and you dominate them straight away, while with others you know it's going to be a very difficult match.

In other words, if a person chooses Man U. that actually tells me nothing - it's the person's skill that determines how difficult the match will be, not the team that they choose to play as.

Even if I choose to play as a three starred team, and my opponent chooses a five starred team, that still tells me nothing - if the person doesn't know how to play then I can still beat him.

And by the way, here's a little trick I've learned in the superb 5 Vs.5 online mode (probably only applies to the North American server though). If one of the teams is, say, England, and the other is Mexico, then choose to play with Mexico. Even if one of the teams is much weaker, but happens to be a Mexican club side, then choose the weaker Mexican club side.

Why?

Because Mexican players like to play as their own country, or as one of their club sides, and Mexican players really know what they're doing. In my latest five-on-five match, for example, I played with a three starred Mexican club side and we took on mighty Italy.

We, the club side, won 5-0.

So you see, it's not really the team that matters. It's the person (or people) in control of the team.

EDIT: The only disconcerting thing about playing with the Mexicans however is that you've got no idea what they're saying - unless you speak Spanish, that is. That said, the phrase: "You stupid moronic idiot how come you just missed scoring on an open net!" has a kind of ring to it that cuts through all language barriers.