The Singers and arrows of outrageous fortune Comments Off
I suppose it had to happen. After a better-than-expected start to my second Master League career in which I played 5, won 1, drew 2, and lost 2 (narrowly), those famous Default donkeys have run full tilt into two teams who ripped me apart without much effort at all.
Last time around, the first season of Master League was very difficult, and that was playing against a set of teams in an ordinary league setup. This time around, in a probably-doomed attempt to extend the longevity of PES2008, I’m playing in a custom league made up of all the best club teams in the game and Aston Villa…
Genoa 4-0 Singers FC
The Serie A middlemen put four goals past me in a game where I lost the plot completely after going 2-0 down. I had three players sent off before 60 minutes were on the clock. Griersen, Lieberman, and Burchet all saw red.
Sevilla 4-0 Singers FC
Sevilla also dished out an effortless thumping, at times almost literally walking the ball through my alleged defence. This time I managed to hold myself together on the sliding-tackles front, and only got one player sent off.
Taking two hefty defeats has pushed me down into a more familiar position in the table. I think this is how it’s going to be for the rest of the season, or at least until I get to the mid-season negotiations. They can’t come soon enough.
After seven games I’ve found that all of my players are fatigued all the time. It was not so last time, when I played on Normal. The higher Master League difficulty level seems to relate solely to stamina levels. I’ll be interested to see how my negotiations go this time.
These two torrid, awful, punishing matches have forcibly reminded me just what it means to play with the Default players. They simply cannot pull off the kinds of moves that I want them to pull off.
I shouldn’t expect Ximelez & co. to be able to carry the ball for very far, or shoot with power and accuracy from all sectors of the pitch, or pass the ball with aplomb, or do any of the things that I was used to doing with Schwarz & Beerens & co. It looks as though my ‘muscle memory’ of playing with a team of superstars has overtaken me at last. This is what I feared would happen.
How to combat it? Back to basics. Pass and move. Go ultra-defensive, ultra-cautious. Settle for 0-0 draws if that’s what I have to do.