Interesting. This wouldn't be all internationals though, right? I played one last night, got an assist, was man of the match, 7.0 rating on top player, but no match exp. Maybe only big games - I'll check to see if that's the way it works.
What's lame though is that if you skip matches the game says "are you sure you want to do that? If you do, you won't get any match exp?" Everytime I see that I laugh. I never get any anyway, and when I do, it amounts to, what, a fraction of a percent of 1 stat increase? It makes me wonder how much my play is actually contributing to the development of the player... If at all.
I guess the main reason I'm unhappy about this is that it was so much more rewarding in Fantasista. You would get match exp in a lot more games, and when you did, it was very clear why (if you took five shots, your shooting would go up, almost guaranteed). The ratings and the player development graph were much better in Fantasista as well. Don't get me wrong, I like 09, but I just think the PS2version for these aspects of the game was more well thought out.
I'm almost thinking in 09 that it's a cumulative thing, i.e. it builds up over time, then you get your match exp when a limit has been reached for some # of completed passes, minutes played, shots, etc...
