darn i guess we were all stupid on our football team when we believed our coaches when they said we could beat penn in football.... dang....
maybe you could atleast sell to your kid "hey you can win this match" and then if he wins it sell him that he can win the next match. Maybe then the next one. Once remember a story from a softball coach who had a girl pitch who never pitched before, he said "Hey i need you to give me one good inning" she went out and did it, then he said "i want another good inning" she did it... in the 4th inning she finally had a bad inning and she was upset, the coach went out and said "hey, its ok, i asked for one good inning, you gave me 3." Point is maybe you should sell him success match by match, rather than just say "heck he probably won't get out of the rattail."