You are not the team's coach. You're the team's manager, which means someone else is down there by the bench who might be taking some instruction from you but ultimately makes his own decisions. I must say I am pleasantly surprised by how well the AI coaching works in this game.
Then why are we setting lineups and tactics? Those are coach duties. As far as I'm concerned, we're the general manager
and coach. If not, then remove the ability to set tactics and lineups and introduce the hiring of coaches with various skillsets, much like players. I doubt many people would want that.
Actually that's exactly what you shouldn't do. I've played a game like that before, and I cannot stress enough how annoying setting the line-ups is. As a matter of fact, I quit when I figured out I can't be bothered to spend time setting 5 different parameters for each of my 12 players before every game.
So you like spending time buying and selling players, but don't enjoy learning how to properly utilize them? Why don't we just make this a daytrading game then? Even in Pokemon, if you catch a powerful Pokemon, you still have direct them in combat.
Plus, there are other things to consider here: first, players already adjust their behavior according to game situations: foul trouble, for example. I don't think it would be too realistic or indeed useful for gameplay to treat your players as pawns who do your bidding each and every time.
No, you would give them basic guidelines on how to perform during games, just like coaches assign specific roles to each of their players on the team IRL. Players would still think on their own, but more tendency variables could be tweaked.
Most of these terms have no meaning in the current game engine. As for new skills, since there is a finite number of skills per player in the game, you can't describe everything, so something is bound to be left out. The current skill system already does a good job of describing a player's abilities, I don't think expansion is necessary. Especially having in mind that it's already somewhat difficult to compare the strength of the different skill sets (read: a bit too many skills per player).
Difficult? I don't find it difficult at all. In fact, I find it quite effortless to assess a player's strength and/or compare them with others.
My experience tells me there are 2 major factors helping to achieve this: the game shouldn't be too simple, because game play is dull; and it shouldn't be too complex, because game play is annoying.
I think temporary "annoyance" is a small price to pay for depth in the long run. I think everyone gets a little annoyed when they're forced to use their brains, but that's ultimately what keeps players interested - the challenge.