When Castolo was great… 13
(The last time Castolo was truly great he was called Castello, but I’ll come to that.)
Yet another Elcherino hat-trick featured in a crazy game against Sampdoria that ended 5-5. That’s 17 goals for him since mid-season. He’s already second in Division 2’s top-scorer table. Caracciolo got my other two goals. I was lousy at defending in this match. Elcherino’s goals have made me complacent. I’ll have to work on that.
Elcherino was unfit for the next game against Spartak Moscow. I had to play Castolo up front on the left. I was quite worried about this game, as I was also missing Altintop, Camacho, and Jackson.
Castolo rose to the challenge of filling the Special One’s boots by scoring all three goals in an easy 3-0 win. Here’s the pick of them:
Ahhh, Castolo. There’s plenty of PES lore that I’ve yet to mention in this blog. The topic of Castolo as a PES phenomenon is a prime example.
Castolo in PES2008 – and in PES down the years – is a subject I will return to at greater length in the future. It’s going to be a long 10 months to PES2009.
For now I’ll just say that until PES4 - I think that was when he underwent the name-change from Castello to Castolo (why? this has never been established) – he really was as good as the first set of strikers you’d end up buying for your ML team, and sometimes better. He was definitely the last player you’d ship out on a trade or transfer, and you’d always get a good price for him.
Nowadays, though, I don’t see what all the Castolo-related fuss is about. He’s better than the other Default players, granted, but being the best of a bad bunch doesn’t make him a good player. In my opinion Castolo, like many real-life players, continues to enjoy a special reputation based on past exploits alone. He really hasn’t been ‘all that’ for at least three instalments of the game now.
Until he scored his hat-trick against Spartak, he’d only scored one other all season. In my first Master League he was just as bad.
And yet people still rave about him, to the extent that the entire Master League default team is often referred to as ‘Castolo & co.’
I don’t get it. Maybe it’s me.