PES Chronicles

The most common scoreline in FIFA08 is 1-0. That also happens to be the most common scoreline in the real game of football. It’s day 4 of FIFA08 week on PES Chronicles, and I’m re-immersed in my Manager Mode career with Coventry City.

I started this career in the weeks leading up to the release of PES2008, then roughly abandoned it as PESday neared. Now here I am, back with my tail firmly between my legs…

Manager Mode on FIFA08: All the real teams, with the real kits, with the real players, playing in their real leagues. This much is well known. It’s never meant anything to me in the past and it means nothing to me now.

Gameplay is the most important element of a football game. The second most important element of a football game is gameplay. It’s also the third most important element.

After that point, yes, I’ll admit that presentation and licensing might count for something. However, there is evidence to show that some things might have been a little rushed…

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I started out in the Championship with Coventry City, with the real squad made up of the likes of Ward, Tabb, and Adebola et al. Stunning mediocrities all. (Sorry, lads, if you’re reading this, but you are.)

I started on Semi-Pro. After a few games, I went down to Amateur. I didn’t come back up to Semi-Pro for about ten, twenty games. Something like that. It took me that long to get comfortable with the core mechanics of FIFA08.

I was mid-table near the end of my first season, but then I put together a run of results that lifted me up to 5th place and a playoff spot. Er, in theory anyway. Imagine my extreme disgruntlement when no actual playoffs took place. Suddenly it was the next season. I was still in the Championship. The third-placed team had automatically been promoted to the Premier League.

Bad, EA. BAD. I trust that there have been red faces among the development team, and not a few smacked bottoms. The English league non-playoff fiasco is just one of a number of niggling annoyances in FIFA08. Thankfully, the majority of them are off the field of play. Read ‘em and weep, Seabass.

Here’s my current FIFA08 First XI:

Unlike my PES2008 First XI, this one is pretty constant. You can upgrade your club’s fitness coach stage by stage (at a progressively higher cost) to the point where your players are almost always fully fit before every game. Extreme fixture congestion only has a slight impact.

Until I started to get good players, I played a 3-5-2 in almost every game. FIFA08 is all about the build-up play. It’s a rare goal that isn’t preceded by a good deal of passing – thus, midfield dominance is a necessity.

I have a pretty solid bench as well. Among them are the likes of O’Shea, Pedro Mendes, Stevanovic, and Chamakh. I’ve never heard of some of them but they’re very good…

It’s pretty easy to accumulate enough cash to build a great team with Coventry City within a few seasons. I got automatic promotion in season 2008-09, and started battling it out in the Premier League. I have finished 8th, 5th, and 3rd in the past three seasons. Currently, in the middle of season 2012-13, I’m challenging for three trophies: League, Cup, and European Cup.

PES2008’s holy grail in Master League is the Treble. FIFA08 offers the crazily ambitious football gamer a mouth-watering prize, at least in the English League: the Quadruple.

Sadly, the Quadruple is over for me in this season. I have just been knocked out of the League Cup by Burnley. My team of quasi-galacticos was out-muscled and outplayed by the Championship upstarts in a grim encounter at Turfmoor.

That can happen in FIFA08 – a bit too often, actually, for my liking. You can play superbly against Chelsea one week and beat them 2-0 ( a great result in FIFA08), then take on Northampton Town in the Cup, struggle to keep the score at 0-0, and finally win 8-7 on penalties after extra time. I know because it happened to me on Saturday night.

Michael Owen is my top striker. I’ve had him for two full seasons now and he’s scored 20+ in both. Another roll-of-the-eyes FIFA08 moment: after signing him, Owen ‘held a press conference’ where he gushed about playing for Coventry City and said he had supported the club ever since he was a boy… Groan.

Anyway. Suspension of disbelief and all that. Here’s Owen executing a lovely scissors kick in the box:

Those close-range scissors-kick goals are among FIFA08’s most common goal types. Long punts over the keeper’s head and weak headers are among the others. It’s not a perfect game, not by any means. Sometimes you’ll score a common type of goal for a few games running. You’ll think you’ve got FIFA08 cracked and it ain’t so tough after all. Then you’ll find yourself locked at 0-0 and having to sweat to craft a proper goal, and know that you’re still learning the ropes.

I signed Mathieu just to see what he would be like in FIFA08 after trying and failing to get him for so long in my PES2008 ML career. He’s been great. Here’s a goal from Mathieu in FIFA08:

Yes, that’s a pretty ordinary goal by PES standards. By FIFA08 standards it’s a rarity, and one to treasure. The shooting is that difficult.