Altintop of the morning Comments Off
For the rest of the football game year I will be spending half my time on PES2008 and the other half on FIFA08. In years past I spent all my time on PES and none of my time on FIFA. Curse you Seabass...
The plan is subject to change at any time. The PSP version of PES2008 could waltz in and take over the blog. I might get myself an Xbox360 and discover the delights of Sensible Soccer (nb: not rediscover, but discover. I missed out on SWOS the first time around. The 1990s was a gap decade for me and gaming).
There’s one other big football game definitely on the horizon. I intend to get myself a new PC sometime this year – probably in March or April. If/when I do get that new PC, I will be getting myself a copy of Football Manager 2008, and diving back into the deep, deep depths of a franchise that I last played a couple of years ago.
I’m hilariously bad at Football Manager. I lack the patience to spend enough time tinkering with my team and tactics. I got myself sacked in all but one of my dozen-or-so attempts to lead Coventry City to glory. Even in the one attempt when I did get them into the Premiership, and had tempted the likes of Iniesta and Sol Campbell to the club, I did terribly and was on the verge of being sacked when I had to abandon the game due to PC hardware issues. Whew.
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Back to my second season with Singers FC.
Singers 1-2 Villarreal
I went 1-0 up and was cruising before Villarreal bludgeoned me late in the second half and came back to win. In the last few minutes I got frustrated at the CPU’s keep-ball routine, and had Recoba sent off for a savage sliding tackle from behind.
I was seeded for the D2 Cup again – a great relief, as I want to get off to a flier this season and could do without the energy-sapping cup matches in between the league matches.
Singers FC 3-2 Spartak Moscow
An amazing game for several reasons. The #1 reason by a long way was… the Spartak goalkeeper was sent off for a foul in the box. I’ll say that again, because it’s worth repeating: the Spartak goalkeeper was sent off for fouling me in the box. I couldn’t believe it either. And I got a penalty.
In complete shock, I missed the penalty with Altintop. But he went on to score two of my three goals in a fine win. I was a little disappointed to allow the CPU’s 10 men to get two goals back, but hey. That’s football.
Here’s one of the goals that Altintop got for me in the Spartak game:
I was tempted just to let rip with Morfeo and go for a spectacular goal as he ran down the left, but I restrained myself and went for the safe option. I tapped triangle whilst pointing the analogue stick toward Altintop in the middle. I love the smoothness of that through-ball from Morfeo. If you do the simple things well in PES2008, then the bread and butter goals will come. And then you earn yourself the breathing space to try the extravagant stuff.
Ajax 3-0 Singers FC
Thumped. There’s no other word for it. Ajax were sheer class. I have no complaints about scripting in this one. They were just too good for me and I failed to contain them.
Bad old habits resurfaced for me as I tried to get the ball back from the Dutch artists. I lost my discipline again and started trying to hack my way back into the game. Macco and Lagutz were sent off.
Three very different but very good games (mostly) leave me in 7th place after four games.
Disappointing in some ways, but overall I’m happy with how my players feel. I need to slow myself down more and play within their current limits.