Master League – starting over 12
At last, it was time.
Time to start a new Master League career, with a new team, in a new league – and, eventually, with some strict House Rules.
Those House Rules will come in at the end of the first season. They’re needed to extend PES2008’s longevity. (Curse you Seabass!, etc.) I found that my first PES2008 Master League career was just so, so easy in the end. In my fifth and final season I was only seriously challenged on one or two occasions. I scored 136 goals in the League and won the Treble with ease. Usually I start a Master League career and just play that for the whole of the PES year. That is not an option this time around.
After spending most of the past week playing FIFA, I needed a warm-up match on PES2008. So I loaded up my first ML team, Coventry City, and had a few games.
After several days spent with the formidable simulation that is FIFA08 (nb: on the two next-gen consoles only), it was strange at first. PES2008 really deserves its faintly insulting description of arcadey.
I was soon back in the groove. After thumping Manchester United 5-0 with Schwarz and Shimizu et al, I decided that was enough warming up. On with the main event.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
I thought long and hard about playing another career with a team called Coventry City, using the same Sky Blue home kit and all-white away kit.
Those kits had a lot going for them. In five full seasons I never suffered a single instance of PES2008’s infamous kit-clashes.
I decided to go with a different team name and a different set of kits. Better to start completely afresh with another team and another set of kits.
When it came to the name, I decided to call my team after the original name of the real Coventry City Football Club. Thus my team is called – wait for it – SINGERS FC.
Yes, Singers FC.
The short version of the story is that Singers was the name of the football club that eventually became Coventry City. I kind of wish I’d gone with The Bantams now – that was CCFC’s nickname for three-quarters of a century until Jimmy Hill came along. But Singers FC it is and will remain. It still makes me wince slightly, but I am slowly getting used to it.
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After choosing my new team’s name, a new home and away kit was needed.
The home kit on the left was not intended to be a day-glo version of the Man Utd strip. I just sort of randomly played around with the buttons until I got a result that I liked (a bit like PES2008 itself, eh?)
The away kit on the right dazzled my mobile phone camera. It’s a kind of livid puke-green. It was intended to be as opposite from the home kit as possible.
I hate the kits. Both of them. I was too impatient to get started. I intend to change these kits at the first opportunity. I’ve already tried to change them in the top menu’s Edit mode, but the changes don’t appear in Master League. I’ll have to wait until after this first season is over. Feast your eyes on the abominations above, because they’re on show for one season only.
Let this be a lesson to all Master League aspirants: Set up in haste, repent at leisure.
THE SUPERLEAGUE
I did take a good deal of time and thought over the composition of the two Superleague divisions. Here they are:
Division 1 is self-explanatory: every top club in the game.
Choosing the teams for Division 2 was more problematic. I had to make it challenging, but not so tough that by the time I won promotion I would by default be good enough immediately to challenge for honours in Division 1. Have I got it right? With all of those ‘lesser’ Italian teams in there, I might have made it too demanding, and eventually I’ll go up to Division 1 more than ready for the big boys. Time will tell.
If nothing else it’ll be intriguing to see how the CPU teams fare against each other in these two divisions. Who will be promoted and relegated as the seasons start to pass?
I’ve already played the first 5 games of the season. I’ll post about them tomorrow.