Season’s End; and Under Pressure
Posted by: Greg Downs in Shaw, formations, negotiations, squad, tags: Cafu, formations, Frutos, negotiation period, Rami, Rommedahl, Shaw, squad, youth playersSeason 2008 is over.
Final Position: 18th (36 points)
Won:9 Drew:9 Lost:20
Goals scored:29 Goals conceded:57 Goal difference:-28
Yellow cards:41 Red cards:24
Third from bottom is better than rock bottom. Bring on the next season.
My transfer market activity was a little subdued by a deficit in my points. To avoid a Game Over I had to make up the difference somehow before I could even think about doing anything else. I put all of my remaining Default players on the market and advanced to the next week.
Thankfully, another club offered to buy Fouque. They were welcome to him. I got about 2600 points, which put me back in the black by about 1500 points. I could have trimmed the wages bill by releasing a couple of the Default stiffs, but as trade-in fodder they’re more useful to me alive than dead…
So my dreams of going on a spending spree were dashed. I could afford to bid for maybe one good player (with a trade-in). Any other players I got would have to be out-of-contract ones, or youths.
Here’s who I got in the end:
RAMI - CB, age 23. Out of contract. I offered a deal, and he accepted. Looks like a good solid CB with pretty good stamina and heading abilities.
CAFU - SB, age 17. I couldn’t resist snapping up the semi-legendary Brazilian right back when I saw him pop up in the Youth list. He already has great stats, but as ever his fitness will hold him back for a couple of seasons.
SHAW - SMF/WF, age 17. Another simply irresistible discovery in the Youth list. The legendary PES6 player returns to my Master League side anew. The value of this player throughout his 20s is incalculable. I could have filled two PS2 memory cards with his memorable PES6 goals alone. Alas, as with Cafu (and the other 9387 Youth players I’ve taken on), he’ll be a spectator for most games because of his fitness.
FRUTOS - CF, age 28. I traded a player for him (can’t remember who now - maybe it was Ceciu). Frutos is just the ticket: an experienced, reliable striker to play up front and allow Shimizu to move back to midfield.
(I know, that’s two more Youth players to add to the acne-scarred list. But Cafu and Shaw are special, as Schwarz and Shimizu were and are. And the other youngsters are all getting on a bit now.)
I’ve gone with this First XI for the imminent start of the 2009 season:
Only Frutos is new on the teamsheet. I’ve moved Folan over to the right and put Shimizu in his natural right-sided AMF slot. I’m still leaving a lot of pretty good players out of this diagram, but as ever it’s all academic. It’s a rare match when the First XI is the team that actually plays.
Here’s my complete squad right now:
There’s still a lot of dead wood to clear out. Among the remaining Default players, only Macco still plays well for me - the others are all headed out of the door as soon as possible. Among them, sadly, will be Rommedahl. I had such high hopes when I got him from the Out of Contract list last season, but he has done nothing of note.
I’m not going into 2009 - my third season - with any grand plans. I’m not aiming for targets. I’m going to adopt a common football mantra, and just take each game as it comes.
The pressure is certainly on, though. If I don’t achieve promotion to Division 1 in the 2009 season, it’ll be my worst-ever Master League start on a PES game. I can’t shake the feeling that with the players I had last season I should have done a lot better. I worry that I might have lost my Pro Evo mojo. Or perhaps PES2008’s Master League is actually, you know, challenging…
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Let’s all sing together
Play up, Sky Blues
While we sing together
We will never lose
Proud Posh or Cobblers
Master League or anyone
They shan’t defeat us
We’ll fight ’til the game is won!
When you are selling your donke . . . er, default squad players, do you transfer-list them, or just wait for other sides to come in for them?
Been a good few years since I sang the Sky Blues song on the terraces….
And yes, I transfer list all my players when I want to entice other clubs to come and get them. It seems to work better this time round than previously.
This reminds me that I keep meaning to moan about not being able to have a player on the transfer list AND use them in player trade negotiations at the same time. You still have to go back to your squad list and take them off the list before using them in a trade offer. MOST annoying.
It’s always been that way in PES but it’s really something they should have changed by now.
There are so many of those little things that just don’t get squared away, I really think they’re pretty badly under-staffed! Hopefully all of the organizational changes Seabass has been on about will give them the bandwith for a dedicated ML team who can put their energy into making it the best play experience it can be.