I'm on my 3rd season, and only now have I figured out how to assign unlocked traits to your player, literally as soon as I give the 5 traits:

Outside Foot Shot
Finesse Shot
Swerve Pass
Skilled Dribbling
Bicycle Kicks

...I've been playing so terribly bad, I only play Semi-Pro (because every Professional game is either 0-0 or 1-0, too boring).

The two most noticeable differences I'm seeing are:

1) If I'm attacking whilst having the ball (my player), minimum 2 of their players come and attack me, I've even had 4 of them come at me and it's impossible to get by them, so I have to pass or lose it. When any of my teammates have the ball it often happens where they can just jog by them with the other players gormlessly staring whilst keeping a half a yard distance.

2) My finesse shots are SO SO bad, even from 25 yards out, if the power bar is a quarter full or more it goes over, any less and my player barely touches it. And they constantly go fucking wide by about a meter, it's extremely ridiculous and I'm probably gonna disable it because it makes it worse.

Over the last 10 games my Shot:Goal ratio has dropped under the expectation because I miss unless I'm 10 yards from the goal.

I'm really confused, the game is still on Semi-Pro so I haven't the slightest clue what's went wrong besides the traits.

I'd rant about the stupid yellow cards that come from nothing but that's another story...