4-3-3 ftw!
(Yes…. that ftw! thing is starting to get old and annoying, isn’t it? ftw! is the new woot!)
Everything is different now:
I felt that I had to go back to 4-3-3. The 4-4-2 was adequate. It was workmanlike. It was solid. It was occasionally swashbuckling. But it wasn’t me. If it had worked out as well as I’d hoped, I’d stick with it. But I was still conceding the goals, and I was relatively blunted up front.
A few games ago I noticed that Donadel has DMF as an alternate position, so he’s taken the position from the still wet-behind-the-ears Duffy. Bramble is solid at CB. Shaw starts for me now (when he can) in Chairman Mao’s left-sided AMF spot.
And results were immediate. Boy, were they immediate…
Rosenborg have been a bit of a bogey team for me in Division 2. I remember them thumping me 5-1 – or something disgraceful like that – way back at the very start, when I only had Dodo and Stein et al to chase them around the park.
So, my first game with my new re-imagined 4-3-3, and Rosenborg are the opponents. I went 0-1 down in the first five minutes. I could have wept. Was this it? Was I doomed to play badly in Division 2 forever, and blog about it here to the increasing amusement/bemusement of everybody, including myself?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FTr_UoTmo&rel=1]
Perhaps not. The above goal came just at the right time – immediately after the break. Wee Jimmy Shimizu pops up with a nice mid-range finish, in off the post. Now these are my real PES bread and butter goals – more, please.
De Ridder obliges, only a few minutes later, running centrally from a position on the left wing (how he got over there I don’t know). Another nice mid-range finish, and I held on for the win. Holding on for the win ftw!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXsBhsNSSGI&rel=1]
It was the start of a run of results like no other run I have had so far.
Rosenborg 1-2 Coventry City
Coventry City 4-0 Reading
Olympiacos Piraeus 1-3 Coventry City
Coventry City 2-0 Helsingborg
Played 4. Won 4. Lost 0. Goals scored: 11 Goals conceded: 2.
(At one point I had to visit the General Settings section on the Master League menu to check that I was still playing on Top Player difficulty.)
I’m particularly happy to be scoring goals again. It’s not just the amount of goals I’m now scoring that pleases me; it’s the kinds of goals, too. Traditional PES-style goals. If you’re not scoring them, you don’t know the game yet. Look at this one from Schwarz:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP7iz1YJvC0&rel=1]
(Incidentally, that’s probably the best-quality video I’ve captured with my mobile phone camera. I’m not certain what I did right – probably just zooming in the replay, and slowing it down. Zooming in and slowing down ftw!)
This is Championship form – or it would have been, if I’d started playing like it a bit sooner.
Shutting out the opposition is the key. Clean sheets+goals=results. It’s a mathematical certainty.
Coventry City ftw!
*quivers with excitement, and promises never to use ftw! ever again. Not even ironically*
When I moved back to Kansas and started supporting the Wizards (Kansas...
I’m glad to see its going your way again, no such luck for me!
I haven’t had much chance to play since my comment of installing (played 5 games back to back – losing 4 and drawing 1). Hopefully next week I’ll have time to get some serious playing in and aim for the kind of form your hitting!
Hope the next blog is coventry are promoted!
Paul
Cheers Paul – oh, and my slowdown problem has 99% vanished now. The various tweaks and fixes that are out there have worked for me. (It’s disgraceful that *console* users should have to use them though.) Still waiting for the patch from Konami to clear up the last 1% of slowdown. Wherever it is that Galatasaray play at home in Master League is the absolute WORST ground in the game for slowdown.
Woah! What was the difference? Changing your starting DMF, a tweak to your 4-3-3, or just some random coming together of whatever hidden PES qualities that let you start winning games?
Were you paying attention to your teamwork ratings as your new guys played together? Is there a teamwork tipping point?
p.s. ftw!
I have no idea what it was specifically – I really think something just clicked. And clicked *properly* this time. I don’t know.
The 4-3-3 was an all-new one that I set up from scratch with no attacking runs as I read somewhere that they help to tire out your players and send them roaming all over the pitch when you least want them to. Shaw has suddenly become not just good but very very good. Not as great yet as he will be, but good enough to be making a regular difference.
Bramble in defence alongside Suzuki or Rami has been fantastic for me. I was playing kids with Suzuki or Rami before – or even two kids at the same time, sometimes.
A decent DMF in place of the two other players I was regularly playing there – Suzuki and Duffy (one an ageing wheezer, the other a youth) – has also made a great difference. Donadel ftw!
so what popularity rating does your team have (and your individual ’stars’)?
that rank below ‘D’ (anonymity) is pretty hard to get out of in the 2nd division on top player, geez.
p.s. im hoping you stay in the 2nd division to keep bloggin about it, considering thats where I am at the moment (same settings as yourself)!
4-3-3 – fast wingers are my thing. Dagaka is amazing.
DMF? ‘Abe’
Club Brugge always give me a battering. Knocked me out of the cup 6 – 1 plus got 6points out of me in the league. how have your results gone against them?
Club Brugge aren’t in my Master League division. I’m in League B Division 2. I did some editing on Division 1 before starting (putting all the English clubs in there) and I *think* I edited Celtic and Rangers into Division 2 as well. Brugge were probably one of the teams I booted out to make way. As things stand I’ve got about three bogey clubs who just seem to pulverise me every time I play them – Galatasaray are the worst.
I think I will kind of miss the hurly-burly of Div2 as well – IF I make it to the end and get promoted. I’ve left it late to go on this run and realistically only 3rd place is possible.
Oh, and ranks – I just checked them (not taken much notice until now), and I’m ranked ‘D’ as a team and all but a couple of my players are ‘D’ or anonymous. Bramble is ‘A’. Shimizu, Schwarz, and De Ridder are ‘C’. I’ve been watching how that works over the last few games and Mattsson – one of my young CBs – went up to ‘C’ for a few games, then back down to ‘D’. I’d played him for a while then dropped him once Suzuki was fit again. Hmmm. I’ll have to watch this popularity thing carefully.