PES Chronicles

Strewth, there’s just no suspense after that headline and that photo, is there?

I have completed season 2009 and finished 3rd. Here’s the final table:

Final Position: 3rd (66 points)
Won: 20 Drew: 6 Lost: 12
Goals scored: 59 Goals Conceded: 50 Goal difference: +9
Yellow cards: 39 Red cards: 9

Coventry City have been promoted to League B Division 1. I can breathe slightly easier. I have avoided having my worst-ever start to a PES Master League. (It’s joint-worst with my PES5 Master League start.) I’m glad I don’t have to go through another Division 2 season again.

I’ll kind of miss scrapping around for results. I’ll also kind of miss the accompanying neuroses and self-doubts. I really thought I’d lost my PES mojo for a while back there.

But I’m really looking forward to playing the Liverpools, Man Utds, and Chelseas of Division 1, and qualifying for Europe, and going for Trebles, and all the rest of it. I’m also looking forward to meeting the Division 2 champions, Sunderland, again – I owe them one for a painful defeat earlier this season. A true PES Master League player never forgets, and never forgives.

In the end, I had a pretty comfortable run-in. I played very well for most of the games, and superbly in a few. Here’s a goal from Shimizu that I scored along the way:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYuyRzv6hZE&rel=1]

There was no contrived last-game decider. There were a couple of games in which I lost heavily and wondered if I was being set up for a last-game drama, but it never materialised.

I clinched 3rd spot in the penultimate fixture against the then 4th-placed team, Birmingham City. I won 1-0. Chairman Mao scored the goal early in the second half with a powerful shot that the Brummie keeper could only get fingertips to. I then had to hold on for dear life after Klavan was sent off in the 70th minute.

The final whistle blew and my players celebrated. John Champion had some kind words to say. I sat back, taking it all in.

Afterwards I was in a hurry to get the season over with, and crack on to the off-season negotiations. But I had to play one more league game against Derby.

It was a meaningless final fixture. But there was an important lesson to be had from this game. I barely concentrated, thinking about the season to come, and Derby thumped me 4-1.

It was embarrassing. No defending, no attacking. Precious little midfielding. My goal came during injury time at the end – a lucky header from an aimless cross. I didn’t deserve it. The lesson was, and is: bring your whole self to every game. Divided attention is the deadliest PES handicap.

Donadel. I first mentioned him in Season’s End; and Under Pressure. Almost as an afterthought, I mentioned him again in 4-3-3 ftw!

Who is Donadel? He’s the player who’s turned my season around, is who.

It started when Duffy got himself sent off in a game against Besiktas. This is going back a good bit, now. At least 10 games, maybe more.

I was 0-1 down. I took off Schwarz and moved things around up front. I noticed for the first time that Donadel – a CMF – could play at DMF as well. There was nobody else to fill in (Suzuki was blue-arrowed for that game), so on came Donadel.

His impact on the game was electrifying. I got a goal back within minutes. He had nothing to do with it directly, but he had broken up a couple of CPU moves in a manner that seemed more… decisive, somehow, than any other DMF I’ve played with so far on PES2008.

I’m used to playing with 10 men by now. In fact I even play a little better with 10 men. It’s the same in PES2008 as it is in real life. The 10 men tighten up, concentrate more, take more care with their passing. The single human player of PES2008 does the same thing.

It suddenly seemed to me that Donadel was a giant. He was everywhere on both sides of the pitch. Tracking back to help out both SBs. Sitting in front of the CBs, blocking shots and making tackles. Going forward and linking up with the AMFs. The only thing it seemed he couldn’t do was unleash rockets at goal a la Mathieu and other notable DMFs. But that’s something I’m happy to live without, when he plays like this as a DMF.

Ever since, he’s been my first-choice DMF. When he plays, and when Shaw and Shimizu play too, I don’t think I can be beaten. The three of them completely dominate the midfield every time. In the one or two games that I lost recently, I lost hard – and Donadel didn’t play.

In the game, he’s 26 now. In real life, today in 2007, he’s still 24 and playing for Fiorentina.

Looking at the real Marco Donadel’s mugshot, his game face seems to be a fairly good likeness. Not great, but good enough. They’ve captured the essence of his face, I think – the slightly hangdog, almost droopy look: