Born Toulouse Comments Off
The league is still going well. Played 4, won 3, drawn 1. Beat Club Brugge 5-0 with a hat trick from Orellano (a PES stalwart who is just starting to come good). Thumped Everton 4-0. A tough 1-1 draw at Newcastle. I’m second in the table and well-placed to maintain the title challenge.
There’s a but, though.
The crowded fixtures list here at the start of the season is not doing me any favours (getting the excuse in early…).
I’m kind of prioritising the League, making sure to use Schwarz and Shimizu, Felipe and Mattsson, Bradley and Kaiser in particular solely for those games. The rest can fill in for the Cups. I’m not operating a formal Second XI system as I tried so unsuccessfully to do last season.
As good as I think my squad is, I’m struggling to cope with the Cup games using my squad players.
In the Division 1 Cup, I have played the first leg of the opening fixture against Newcastle. It was at my ground, and I lost painfully 2-3. So not only am I behind going into the second leg, but I shipped three away goals. Oops. That’ll be a testing return tie at Newcastle’s place.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was worse to come.
First up in the ECC (the PES version of the Champions League) were Marseille. The game was at their ground. Home field advantage doesn’t seem to make much difference in PES – or, indeed, in any football video game. Has anyone ever noticed anything different?
Having said that, despite me taking an early lead and bossing most of the first half, Marseille went into overdrive in the second half. They played as if they were being spurred on by a vociferous home crowd. They double-whammied me with two late goals and won 2-1. I shouldn’t have tried to chase the game after their equaliser. I should have shut up shop and settled for a 1-1. This is a group setup, after all. Taking the point would have been the smart thing to do.
Toulouse were next. I went into this one full of confidence, on the back of handing out that 5-0 thrashing to Brugge in the league. I fielded what I thought was a great side: Shaw played, Beerens played, Andy Cole played, Traore played. It was at my ground. Any home field advantage that may be modelled in PES should make this an easy win. Right?
Wrong. Coventry City 1 – 3 Toulouse.
I can’t even complain about scripting – not too much, anyway. Toulouse just seemed to play better than me. My players were sluggish and I failed to take many good chances to score.
Played two, lost two in Europe is not Treble-winning form. In the last of the first games against the other group hopefuls, I played PSV. This was a titanic game. I took the lead, then I gave away a stupid goal, then PSV took the lead, then I equalised. Then PSV scored a third. There were about ten minutes left. Damn.
I went into full-on panic mode. My season was disappearing in front of eyes, right here, right now. I charged all over the place. My finger barely left R1 (I know...). PSV were playing keepball. Then I got Mattsson sent off.
2-3 behind and down to 10 men, in the last seconds of stoppage time I raced forward with Beerens, more in desperate hope than any kind of realistic expectation. Lose this game and kiss goodbye to the Treble, I was thinking.
I skinned a PSV midfielder with Beerens and went on one of those long, looping, semi-circular runs that people who play this game online seem to do all the time. I burst down the wing and sent over a cross… and there was Reyes on the penalty spot to head the ball in. 3-3, and the final whistle blew straight after their kick-off.
So, I salvaged a morale-boosting point right at the death. But will it be enough? I’ll have to win all three remaining group games to be sure of finishing in the top two and progressing to the ECC tournament proper. These are worrying times.
This season, for me, is all about the Treble: League, Cup, European Cup. Winning one or two of them without the third would be a failure.