My guess is that the matchmaking is designed for more than just giving you a fair match.

Sure, you'll get matches in your division against other players with a similar skill level.

But I also think that matchmaking also takes into account connection quality. I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather play someone a little bit better or worse with a solid connection than play someone on the other side of the world that has an identical skill level, but has an absolutely shitty connection that makes the game a lag fest.

Also, I think EA wants to keep your Fifa 16 account safe. I bet they put you against a bunch of players at a lower skill level than you so that you win a bunch of matches in a row, and then after going on a big winning streak, they put you against better players until eventually they put you back against inferior players. Half the games you play will be against players at your actual skill level, so when you're being put against better players, the best you can really hope to do is hold your division.

See, EA says they do this, but I am constantly paired up with people who have utterly shitty connections (I know it's not mine because if it was I would never see green latency or have a smooth game). This could easily be due to EA's own shitty servers but I thought 1v1 matches were peer to peer.

I bet they put you against a bunch of players at a lower skill level than you so that you win a bunch of matches in a row, and then after going on a big winning streak, they put you against better players until eventually they put you back against inferior players.

That's basically what happens with the ELO system. Let's say your ELO rating is 1000. You may play and win a few games with people within 10 points of 1000 (similar skill level). Each win gives you rating points so lets say after a bunch of wins (some pretty lucky) youre at 1100. The players you are matched up with around 1100 Fifa 16 coins now are actually better than you and you lose several games and are now back to 1000.

The reasons you usually play people in 1 is probably because there are less divisions around you when you're in Div 1 and there are more people in there than the divisions I was playing in. I don't know why you're arguing this point. Look at the f-ing data. Being thrown in with players with crappy connections has nothing to do with how players are ranked and matched based on that ranking. Nothing is going to fix that besides everyone playing on the same quality connection.