Come to think of it, how do you say Barota? (I say Ba-ROTTER.) Nachdegall? (Nash-di-GAL.) Ceciu? (SESS-you.) Huylens? (HI-lunz.) There are dozens of such names sprinkled throughout the PESverse. Hey, I sense a special post coming up in the future.
Shimizu? (Shim-ITZ-oo.)
OK, I’ll save it all for that special post. Back to the game.
None of my new players look great. Their stats are on the low-average side, with a couple of exceptions (Recoba and Morfeo). Still, they’re all better than the Default players by a country mile (and then some). But I doubt that any of them will be taking on teams single-handedly next season as The Elch used to….
I’ll be taking special close-up looks at individual players’ stats in the future. It’s an area I’ve neglected in the past.
Here’s a curiosity. Take a look at these mugshots of two of my new players - Matuzalem (left), and Kmolo (right):
They could be brothers. Twin brothers. Kmolo has an extra bit of fringe, and he sports a goatee beard that makes him look as if he’s Matuzalem in a parallel, evil universe. Otherwise, they’re clearly the same player model. Only facially, though. Matuzalem is a midfield whippet. Kmolo is a tall, bulky, classic centre-forward in the Schwarz mould. They’re both among the best of my new crop of players. Both had to go into my First XI. Speaking of which…
I’ve been spelling Libermann wrong all this time. When putting together my First XI list just now, I noticed my mistake and corrected it. Oops.
Anyways, my full squad for season 2008 is thus -
I’ve achieved pretty much all of my House Rule goals at a stroke - the squad size is 25 players, there are at least 5 Default players still in the squad (in fact there are 10), and at least 1 Default player is in the starting line-up. There are no Elcherino-style super-players.
My First XI:
As ever, this First XI is hilariously provisional. It wasn’t even the team I sent out onto the pitch in my first pre-season game.
When I finished last season I was in such a hurry to get it over with and - as I thought - walk away from PES2008 for a long time (or forever), that I simply accepted the first pre-season selections the game presented me with. In this case the teams were Getafe CF and a World Selection.
Things started pretty well against Getafe.
I held them off with what felt like ease… You never can tell when you’re playing PES, or any football game, or sometimes any computer game full stop, whether you are really the one controlling matters or if the game has simply decided to let you do something at this present moment for its own narrative purposes. It’s a feeling I’ve always had to some extent over the last few versions of PES. I cannot shake it off in this particular year for some reason….
I was doing very well, and then I scored. Camacho got me the goal. What to say about this player? He’ll be the first player whose stats and abilities I’ll look at in-depth (next week sometime). Camacho is plainly going to be a star - and, now that I’ve implemented the House Rules, I’m worried about him. What if he becomes too much of a star and I have to move him on? This is why I was so reluctant to return to PES2008 with draconian House Rules.
I won a penalty - a rare enough event - but knew that Morfeo would miss it wherever I chose to hit it. And Morfeo did miss it. I merely flicked the analogue stick to the right and tapped shoot. All very gentle, but it was no good. The ball hit the post, but it rebounded to Camacho…
I love a finish like that - booted into an ‘impossible’ section of the net (the underside of the roof of the net!), and then the shooter falling down under the defender’s hefty challenge. (Would I have got another penalty if I hadn’t scored? Would I hell.)
Getafe stormed back. They mounted consistent pressure but couldn’t get through my defence. I really know how to defend now, if I may say so myself.
Finally they got a free-kick about 25 yards out… and scored. Of course they did. A minute later they got another free kick in almost the same place - and scored this one as well. It ended 2-1 to Getafe. I had to laugh.
My second and last pre-season game before the season started was against a World Selection that featured the likes of Adriano, Ronaldo, Ronaldo (both Ronaldos), and Owen. They thumped me 3-0. So much for my defending. I was kind of lucky to get nil. I barely had a kick of the ball. It might well be another long, hard season ahead.
I enjoyed playing with my new players. More, I enjoyed playing PES2008. After several days of playing FIFA08, it felt a lot like coming home again.
The core PES gameplay has never been bettered as an overall football game experience. Over an entire decade it has stood up. Sure, this year’s next-gen flavour is a little sickly-sweet for my tastes, but it’s still there. It’s still PES.
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Glad to see you in the sprit of things!
The free-kick thing is something I intend to examine at some point (had and interesting experience with it).
As for keeping defaults one that I recomend you keep is Gutierrez, he never turns in to anything spectacular but in my old ML he stayed with me through my 3 seasons and is a solid player. Never know when what stamina issues your going to get and I always found him useful to play either up front or in the midfield. (has the basic attributes (balance/pace/shooting with avg passing). If and when I start a new league he’ll stay in my squad.
Btw is that Bale from tottenham?
Oh and its pronouced get-taffy.
Ahhh, get-taffy, eh? Thanks. Now that I say the name to myself it seems more familiar.
Bale is a strange one. I got him from the Unbelonging list, and he’s 17 years old. He can’t be the real Bale, but who else could he be?! I’m confused. I’ll double-check his age and stats later to make sure I remember him right.
Sadly, paww, I’m no Gutierrez fan. If I’m going to keep one of the Default strikers it’ll be Ordaz.
I say “get-aff-ey,” and I *think* that the Spanish would sound something like “Hay-tha-fe,” but I don’t know for sure.
I love the fact that you have Matuzalem’s evil twin! Which is the better footballer?
Thats how I’ve heard it before (I’m sure there was some sort of bombing or something there, violence either way)
Funny how that works, I’m not a huge fan of Ordaz (I like his name though lol). Just out of the defaults that develop some hes one of the better ones for sure.
ck - At the moment (several games into the season proper) I’d say Matuzalem is better, but Kmolo should get 20 goals for me this season if I use him right.
I think you’re right about the Spanish pronunciation of Getafe. Anglophones (especially the UK kind) are notorious for bending ‘foreign’ words to fit their own pronunciation rules. I once had a semi-serious argument with somebody who insisted that Albert Camus’ name had to be pronounced ‘kay-MUSS’, and not the correct ‘ka-MOO’.
In today’s football, it turns out that Berbatov’s name, in his native land, is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, i.e. burr-BAT-ov. Instead of the way everybody is saying it here at the moment - BURR-buh-tov.
Eric Cantona was another notorious example of this. At first we said Can-TONE-uh. Then it became CAN-tun-ah. Whereas all along it should have been CON-tun-uh.
I’ll definitely do a special post on the pronunciation of odd names and places in the PESverse. I work with a guy who refuses point-blank to call Ximelez ‘HIM-eh-lezz’, for example. He won’t even go for the next-most-likely option of ‘ZIM-eh-lezz’. No, he insists on saying ‘ex-IM-eh-lezz’.
I can’t talk. When I was a lad there was a Spectrum game out called Psytron. I used to call it PUH-sy-tron, even after I knew that was wrong.
I’m probably a bit more interested in this subject than is healthy…
paww2k8 - the Default players develop?! I’m looking forward to finding out, actually, although in years past (and this year, first time through the ML) I got rid of them too quickly to notice.
if you wanna stop the CPU scoring from FKs then just get rid of your wall.
the goalie takes a central position and has a better chance of saving it
You touched on a subject I’m really interested. Getafe is pronounced hay-tar-fay, stress on the tar.
I noticed the Libermann blunder, but I thought it was just a typo. You also misspelled Giersen as Griersen a few times.;)
Matuzalém, btw, is pronounced mutt-oo-zuh-lame, stress on the lame. He’s a decent player in real life. More of an attacking midfielder than a DMF though. Speaking of misspellings, isn’t the player called Kmala, not Kmolo? At least in my PS2 version, that’s his name.
As far as which defaults to keep, I’d suggest El Moubarki, Libermann, Ruskin, Gutierrez and Ettori. Oh, and Van Der Berg.
I’ll keep on the look out for your Camacho tribute. That’s one player I really like.
bostongoals - is it possible to completely remove the wall using L1+down?! That would be incredible if so. I’ll try it tomorrow. I often think in the real-life game that sometimes teams handicap their keepers by having a wall.
Mirandinha - I’ve just found out that your real-life namesake is 1000/1 to take over as manager at Newcastle United
Kmolo is definitely Kmolo in next-gen PES2008. What a peculiar difference between the two versions, having him as Kmala in one and Kmolo in another. Unless they’re different players? Unlikely, but I’ll look tomorrow. I’m ‘away from console’ right now and having an early night. I’ve finally succumbed to a cold that’s been doing the rounds lately.
Matuzalem is primarily a CMF in my game, but has DMF as his alt position. I went with him as DMF in the First XI because he’s the best in the role - for the moment. Gatti (or even Camacho with his Middle Shooting) might take over there soon. Depends how my season goes. Matuzalem is doing pretty well at DMF for the moment, though.
I’ve made lots of mistakes with player names over the last few months. Some of them are typos, some of them are down to hurrying a post to completion, but some of them are just plain errors. I really have seen Libermann as Liebermann al this time - since he came into the Default line-up last year in PES6. There was a US Senator called Joe Liebermann who nearly became Vice President in 2000 or 2004 - I suppose his name and spelling influenced my mis-read of the PES player’s spelling.
I’ll be looking hard at Camacho now while he’s still relatively young (19) and again in a few seasons when he’s in his pomp (hopefully). I’ll also pick a few other players to ’stat track’, looking at how they develop, which stats seem to influence various aspects of their play, how their ability stars come into things, etc. I’ve shied away from this kind of thing so far due to time constraints, but I will be making the effort to make time from now on. I’ll try to do at least one ’stats post’ every week, but I’ll definitely manage one every ten days/two weeks or so, guaranteed.
I agree with bostongoals. So far whenever I’ve removed the wall my goalie has managed to stop the fks.
Besides being off centre, I suspect the wall also hampers his vision somewhat.
mirandinha - I’ve checked and it’s definitely Kmolo, not Kmala. Then I searched for all players with names beginning with KM, and Kmolo is the only one. It must be a regional difference between the games, although it is a peculiar one. I’ve added a screenshot to today’s post as proof. (No, I didn’t Edit the player!)
woog & bostongoals - I had a few games this morning but I clean forgot to try the L1+down method to remove the wall. I’ll try it tomorrow, or later tonight if I get time.
I dont’ know if anyone will see this back here or not but, did you ever try the L1 down thing?
I can’t seem to get that to work.
Might be being stupid but all that seems to do is control the player thats highlighted.. :s
Paul - Wordpress notifies its bloggers whenever anyone posts a comment
I did try it. I was mistaken to think it was L1 - it’s actually L2+down (on the D-pad), and it does work brilliantly. Sometimes you haven’t got time to remove the entire wall before the kick is taken, but it does seem to give the keeper a better chance of getting to the ball. And the players you remove from the wall are free to stand elsewhere, making it more likely that you can clear a loose ball and mount a counter-attack. I’ve still conceded a few direct goals, though, so it’s far from being a foolproof method of defending free kicks.
I thought it did but wasn’t sure if you’d know so knew nobody else was going to see it!
Thanks btw I’ll try that out tomorrow now probably, hope it works!
I would of drawn or won so many games if it hadn’t been for the magic always scoring free-kicks of the cpu.
[...] on Osasuna being pronounced ‘oss-a-sooner’—which it probably isn’t, I know. I’ve had this debate with myself before, about whether it’s wise to pun on foreign team names when pronunciation rules for languages [...]