PES Chronicles

After starting season 2011 very well I was almost scared to start playing again. My usual schtick in PES2008 is to take one step forward and three steps back. Followed by another step or two back, before taking a step forward again. Followed by… you get the idea.

The next match was a pretty dour struggle against Portsmouth. 0-0 it ended, without much incident. The ball seemed to be stuck in the midfield for most of the game. I’d win possession (I’m good at winning possession now), then try to move forward but find that none of my usual moves were getting through. Was this the start of another of my fabled PES2008 Master League backstepping manoeuvres?

No. It wasn’t. I was up against Liverpool in the next game. They never seem to do well against me nowadays. In last season’s Cup Final I thoroughly battered them.

I bossed the game, taking an early lead – and then predictably lost a goal to some suspicious nonsense. 1-1, and I had a certain sinking feeling..

In the middle of the second half I was pressing hard for another goal. Then I got it. Shimizu in his new right-sided CF role has been fantastic for me this season. (He was rubbish when I played him there in seasons 2007 and 2008, but he was only about 6 years old at the time.) This was a classic PES finish:

There’s nothing like rifling one in from an angle across the keeper. These kinds of goals are true bread and butter strikes.

I bagged another goal before the end and ran out a 3-1 winner. It wasn’t very tough.

Sunderland were next. Sunderland: the team that has handed out so many painful beatings to me over the seasons that I’ve lost count of just how much I owe them.

I have a suspicion that the game automatically earmarks certain other club(s) at the start of a Master League as being your bogey team(s). Every game I play against either Galatasaray or Sunderland (my two bogey teams) seems characterised by intensity. That’s the only way I can describe it. The tackles are unflinching; the pace, electric.

This was another relatively dull game in the Portsmouth pattern. The fireworks of the Liverpool game were largely absent. I got a goal with Schwarz early in the second half. Immediately afterward, the Sunderland players turned on their customary Brazilian skills (!) and tried to dance past my defence, but I held firm. I was lucky on one or two occasions. The final whistle blew. Happy? Yes. Yes, I was happy.

Next up was Zagreb away. Things did not get off to a good start. Watch my goalkeeper, Friedel, in this clip:

Thanks for that, Brad. You and Kim U Don’t aren’t sharing a room on away trips ever again.

Okay, so my passing between defenders that gave the ball away was poor – but I had seen out of the corner of my eye this strange black-clad figure running up the pitch, and it distracted me. I wonder how far Friedel would have kept going if I hadn’t lost possession?

If I was now going to give Brad Friedel a permanent nickname along the lines of Kim U Don’t, there’s an obvious one: Bad Friedel. But I went on to win the game 4-1, so I’ll forgive him.

These results – three wins and a draw, with goals aplenty – have pushed me up to third in the table after nine games. Nosebleed territory.

If this is indicative of the season to come, I should be in with a chance at Europe.

I’m still not convinced, though. I still fully expect to find myself dragged back down into the relegation quagmire sooner or later.