PES Chronicles

I tried again for Mathieu. And I succeeded! Well, kind of. Look down there – that’s Mathieu, that is. Wearing the Sky Blue shirt of Coventry City.

What a shame it’s not in PES2008.

It’s in FIFA08, where I placed a bid for him just out of curiosity to see what he would be like in that game.

I’ve been extremely naughty over the past few days: I’ve played more FIFA than PES. It’s unheard-of. Every year used to be the same: I ignored FIFA – or I got it as a stopgap until PES came out, and then I ignored FIFA. The world is turned on its head this year.

I know that I’m not the only PES fanatic feeling like this. “Huh, you’re no true PES fan,” an objector might say. Hey, don’t grumble about it to me. Go tell it to the Seabass. If PES2008 was up to the standards of the past, I’d be using the FIFA08 disc as a beermat.

The player known in FIFA08 as Jeremy Mathieu is pretty good, for what it’s worth. I’ve had him for half a season. He’s got 4 goals from the DMF slot, which is more than respectable by FIFA08 standards. He’s picked up several Man of the Match awards. FIFA08 week is coming to this blog, oh yes. There is so much to talk about.

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Back at PES2008, I tried for and again didn’t get Mathieu and Richards.

Now that I am an ‘A’-ranked team, flying high in all competitions, I know that it’s a wages thing. They won’t come to me because I won’t offer them 2000 to 3000 points in wages. That’s okay, though. I’ll win the Treble without them. They’re nothing special. Who needs them, when I’ve got Guimaraes, Bradley, Kaiser, Beerens, Schwarz, Shimizu, Shaw, Felipe, Mattsson, and Maldini?

Who was that last one? Maldini?!

Yes, finally I have laid my hands on the elusive 20-year-old regen. He’s just been sitting in Man Utd’s reserves for the past couple of seasons. I traded Bramble+7000 points for him.

In PES5 and PES6 I picked up Maldini as a youngster and played him solely as a CB. He was at the heart of my team in every sense – as captain, as defence strongman, as a stand-in SB (left or right) when needed, and on odd occasions as a glorious long-range goal-scorer. In PES5 I played so many seasons that I got him aged 17, saw him retire aged 39, then got him again as a regen. He was approaching retirement again when I had to stop (because PES6 was about to come out).

Is Maldini the best defender I have ever played with in PES? Definitely.

Only when he’s developed, of course. Right now, he’s extremely under-developed. Only a couple of his stats are even in the 80s. It’s a shame I won’t get to see him mature into an all-round Master League great this time around. I’ve made a decision regarding the future of this Master League (see below) which means I’ll have him for the second half of this season and no more.

I also got one other player in the mid-season: Burdner, a 24-year-old forward whom I recall signing a couple of times in other PESes over the past few years. He’s a bit like Shaw: a left-sided player with pace, who can play anywhere from the halfway line to the opposition goal line. I’ve got him as cover for my other strikers ahead of the huge numbers of huge games to come.

I traded in Cafu for Burdner. A shame, as I got Cafu aged 17 and had high hopes for him.

He’s one of those players, is Cafu: a name to be reckoned with. Alas, in PES2008 his development curve shows that he would continue to be fairly rubbish until his mid-to-late 20s. I just haven’t got that long.

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Which leads me nicely to The Big Decision.

I’ve decided to abandon this Master League career at the end of this season – whatever happens. I still want to win the Treble. I would regard it as a failure not to win the Treble. But I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face by playing another season if I don’t win the Treble.

I want to restart in a Superleague made up of all the top clubs in the game. I want to play with Master League difficulty set to Very Hard. I also want to operate my own House Rules, adding another layer of self-imposed difficulty. I want to win a Treble in that Superleague, one that won’t be devalued by the absence of the Italian clubs.

There’s half a season left here. I’m still in all competitions. Before the mid-seasons came, I reached the top of the table after Man Yoo slipped up again. I’m two points clear at the top with a massively superior goal difference. Going on my performance so far, winning the League should – should - be a formality. I’m confident enough to say it even at this stage. The Cups will be more difficult. In the ECC, I spy Real Madrid and Barcelona waiting for me up ahead.

I still badly want that Treble this time around. On with the show.

Amid all my dejection over PES2008’s relative badness I’ve found a goal replay from a few games ago that I think is a bit special. It’s a free kick scored from a long way out and from a relatively acute angle.

The scorer is Schwarz. I went with him as the kicker in this situation because I wanted his shot power more than I wanted the technique of somebody like Shaw.

It’s one of my favourite goals in PES2008 so far. Yes, the keeper gets a hand to it and palms it into the roof of the net, but I don’t think even PES2008’s infamous keepers can be blamed for this one.

Recently I spent about an hour practicing free kicks on the training ground. I discovered that free kicks are not always fated to fly high over the bar or slam embarrassingly into the wall.

There are many little tricks that improve free kicks. I have found that simply reading the manual is the best trick of all.

My favourite free kick technique in PES2008: push up on the left stick. Press the shoot button for the desired amount of power. Then, just as the kicker is taking his run up, twist the stick in the desired direction, left or right, to apply some spin. If extra shot-power is required, tap Triangle (or Y on the 360) just as he connects with the ball. (That latter technique – adding power with a tap of a button – can be devastatingly effective when trying to score through a gap next to the wall.)

I used all three techniques for the Schwarz free kick goal, with the result seen. It might not satisfy PES purists, but I’m happy enough with it to declare it an early contender for my personal goal of the season.