Yes, exactly... The commentaries are different... And look at the NT game of Nigeria vs. USA, you can see that Nigeria played CT and USA TIE...
You only can't tell who played what when you get the standard 'team X put more effort then team Y' message, then you know that either one team has played CT, and other Normal, or one team Normal, and other TIE...
But if you pumped up Enthusiasm to 8-9, and your opponent didn't (now you can be sure by looking at his last 3 league games), you can play Normal and still win... Normal at 8 is approximately the same as CT at 5...