PES Chronicles

Message to self: Must stop signing Youth Players. Must stop signing Youth players. Must stop signing Youth players. Message ends.

Here I am toward the end of season 2008 on Master League and the tale of the tape makes for dispiriting viewing. In nine games since the end of the mid-season negotiation period, I have won 2, drawn 1, and lost 6. I’ve scored 7 goals and conceded 12. As for my team’s disciplinary record for the entire season so far… 37 yellows and 21 reds. Gulp.

I had high hopes going into the mid-season negotiations that the ship was finally turning. But this ship has the apparent turning circle of an oil tanker.

The one consolation is that I’m doing better this season than last. I realise now that I’ve made serious mistakes in the transfer market, and not just once or twice. Too many Youth players too quickly.

I’ve got so many young players partly because I found that the usual method of getting older players was often blocked off. In PES2008, you have to ask the other club’s permission to negotiate a trade-in deal. This permission is often denied because your club is not yet prestigious enough. You need the right players to start playing well enough to get some prestige. It’s the old vicious circle effect.

I’ve switched things around slightly in my First XI over the past couple of games, and it seems to have tightened things up at the back. I’ve moved Suzuki back into defence and made him a CWP – a sweeper. It’s one of his alternate positions, and he’s very good at it. Weir has gone onto the bench. Mattsson continues to do well – he seems to make a freakish amount of successful headed clearances. Duffy has gone into the DMF position in Suzuki’s place.

Despite the poor record, there are signs that the oil tanker is turning. This blog has not quite turned into a peculiar comedy just yet. I’m looking now to finish with as many wins under my belt as possible, and then attack the full off-season negotiations with a vengeance.

Goals! They’re what football is all about, and I’m here to talk about particular kinds of goals…

I’m talking bread and butter goals – the kinds of goals you cannot have a football team without. Oh, those 35-yard, curling, dipping, wonder strikes are all well and good (thanks Macco)…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jiQ33oaAwI&rel=1]

(and let’s see that again, slowed down and from another angle)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Y-PBmZB3U&rel=1]

….but without the routine tap-in types of goals, preceded by methodical team-work, you’ve got nuthin’ to back up all that window dressing. Here’s Schwarz finishing off an incisive move:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdo0lfZttfk&rel=1]

It’s fair to say that Shimizu is a vertically-challenged kind of player. It’s almost comical to see him next to a big defender out on the pitch. One game I was so short of strikers that I had to play Shimizu in the middle up front. But I got my reward. Here’s Shimizu leaping like a salmon in the box:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8jQwcIIBWk&rel=1]

Sadly, while I’m now getting the bread and butter goals, I’m still just as leaky at the back. It is starting to infuriate me that the CPU teams can seemingly score at will, at times, in certain games. You know you’re in trouble when you mysteriously cannot clear six CPU corners in a row and the constant pressure only slackens when the CPU has got the goal that it’s clearly after.

I’ll write at greater length about PES conspiracy theories (aka ’scripting’) another time. I tend to flip between the two camps: those who believe in it, and those who believe that it’s all down to the Formation settings and the human player’s skill – or lack of it – at defending. It depends where I am in the game. Here at the start of my Master League career, I have to say I believe in it. There are too many last-minute CPU equalisers and winners. There are too many times when my previously formidable centre-backs falter and trip over their own feet with no one else around.

But this post is meant to be about goals. The bread and butter kind.

This one was tapped in by Folan in the 90th minute at the end of a good move that featured a raking 50-yard cross-field Circle-pass from Guimaraes. The score had been 2-2 for most of a dour second half, and this won me the game. I was jumping around the room. Almost incidentally, this goal completed a hat-trick for Folan in the match:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwDNFTBOYX0&rel=1]