PES Chronicles

I’m an experienced PES player. I have been playing this game since the days of ISS, with virtual jumpers for goalposts. I have played every version since, and won everything it is possible to win – all the cups, Master League championships, and Trebles galore – on the hardest difficulty settings, year in, year out. I can even hold my own online, when I’m in the mood.

This year I’m struggling. I’ve struggled before. On PES5 it took me three seasons to get promoted, and I thought that was bad. This year might be shaping up to be worse.

It’s week 12 of my second season and my record is pitiful. Played 12. Won 1. Drawn 2. Lost 9. Goals scored: 3. Goals conceded: 25. Making a shameful goal difference of -19. Minus nineteen.

Needless to say, I am bottom of the league. Also needless to say, I will most likely stay there.

After picking up the six new players in the off-season, I was genuinely hopeful that they were enough for me to do well this season. Maybe not well enough to get promoted, but I thought I’d be up there near the top. At the very least I anticipated going into the transfer market with a fat wedge of points to spend.

When all the new boys are fit and I’m concentrating, I play well and can usually compete well with the CPU teams. But those games are few and far between. Most often at least half the new boys are either unfit or – in one maddening case – away on International duty (Schwarz). Most games I play see me fielding a team that is still more or less made up of the original Default players. Ximelez and Hamsun et al. They’re just not good enough this time around.

They’ve never been good enough, really, but in PES2008 their not-good-enoughness is felt even more keenly because of the length of Division 2’s season. Having 20 teams in the division makes for a long and thankless task. It used to be the case that you could easily accept a write-off of a season, because it was never long to the next negotiation period and the start of the next season. But PES2008’s Master League is a marathon.

Even when most of the new boys do play, it negatively affects the way I approach the game. I think that I should be able to make things happen more easily and this leads me to play recklessly, conceding possession too often when I should be putting my foot on the ball and playing it around for a bit. Most of the goals I have conceded have been due to this. The CPU team gets the ball and gleefully walks the ball into my net past a scattered defence.

My 4-3-3 formation is not helping. I‘m finding that when I recover possession in and around my penalty box, I don’t have any outlets. A long pass to a forward is often intercepted. A short layoff to a full back or to the DMF frequently results in an interception as well. The CPU teams seem to have had their pressurising algorithms turned up to 11 this year.

I should be knocking it around at the back more, waiting for gaps to appear, probing for openings. Maybe I’ve read too much about the game’s supposedly ‘arcadey’ attacking style, but I keep trying to move forward too quickly.

I’ll change my playing style before I’ll ever change my trusty 4-3-3 formation. So that’s my plan for now. Slow the game down. Consider my passes a bit more. Slow and steady wins the race.

I don’t have absolutely nothing to play for this season. First and foremost I need to play for transfer points. I’m around the 4500 mark right now. My bill will be 11000 or so at season’s end. And I want to get a couple of new players mid-season.

I am also, don’t ask me how, still in the D2 Cup. I beat Hammerby in the 1st round at the start of the season. I won 2-1 at home then drew the away leg 1-1. Schwarz scored in both games! Good old Schwarz.

The first leg of the 2nd round is my next game.