Back to Matuzalem
It’s the Division 2 Cup Final and I’m playing Sampdoria. I think I’ve only won the D2 Cup once or twice in all the however-many-years-it’s-been that I’ve played the PES Master League game mode.
This is the biggest game of my season and of my Singers FC career so far. I want to win the Cup not just for its own sake but also to boost my team ranking.
Currently, I’m ranked ‘D’. In PES2008’s Master League, the quality of the new players you can sign is directly related to your team ranking. Winning the cup should send me up to rank ‘C’ and enable a good pre-season with better players wanting to sign for me, which in turn should lead to a good season 2009, when I really want to get promoted and see what life is like in Division 1 of this Superleague.
After loading, the screen cleared and I pressed through the entrance scenes straight to the kick-off. I was happy to see that I was wearing my black away kit. Sampdoria were in their traditional blue and white.
After a few minutes’ play I noticed I was at the Bernebeu stadium—thus, there was frequent slowdown when the screen was packed with players at either end of the pitch. I immediately moved slowdown to the top of my list of Things To Moan About If I Lose.
A great start is a must in a big game against a good team in PES2008. And I got it.
Matuzalem, playing at his usual DMF position in my team, bagged himself what I call a classic DMF goal. It wasn’t a great goal, but it was typical of the kinds of runs and shots that I always try to go on with DMFs in my formation. In a 4-3-3 with a lone DMF, the DMF can often get the ball in and around the centre circle, then run straight with it for a little way (or for a long way) before unleashing the shot. The resulting goals can be amongst the most memorable and spectacular in the game, in my experience.
In next-gen PES2008 I’ve found that these DMF goals are slightly harder to come by, despite the game’s dribbling being easier overall, even for less skilled players. It should be easier to work the space and get the shot away, but it’s not. I think this has a lot to do with shooting being less powerful in next-gen PES2008 version than in previous last-gen versions. Also, I’ve rarely had a DMF with the precious Middle Shooting ability, which certainly helps. I’ll be looking out for the likes of Prieto and Mathieu at the end of this season, oh yes…
I went 2-0 up very quickly, knocking the ball around and exploiting my stretched-out front line very well. I was in effortless control of the game. This was too easy…
Things started to get a little screwy. The auto-catchup feature that I was whining about yesterday kicked in—boy did it kick in. I went from controlling the game to being controlled by the game, no question.
Sampdoria got a goal back, and the auto-catchup effect seemed to dwindle a little. I scored another—a Jackson header from a corner. Sampdoria got another goal back, but then I scored a fine mid-range goal with Gatti (on for Matuzalem) towards the end. There was, of course, time for Sampdoria to score yet another before the final whistle blew, but it was too late for them. I’d won the Cup.
Here are all seven goals from the match, from both teams, in the order that they were scored:
Final score: Singers FC 4-3 Sampdoria.
I was awarded a points bonus of 3000 for the win (points bonuses ftw…) and—perhaps more importantly—my Team Ranking shot up to ‘C’.
With just a handful of games left in season 2008, it’s time to start preparing myself for a proper season next season. One where I approach every league game as if it’s a Cup Final, and get myself promoted to join the really big boys of Superleague Division 1. To achieve this, I think I am going to need about four really great players.
Congrats on the cup win. Maybe I will get there one day with my squad of mis-firing chumps lol. I am struggling BIG time. Neglected the ML squad for too long. Starting to think, I should have started at lower difficulty setting. It will take the PES calendar year to get out of Div 2!
oh, how do you guys get the smilies on your posts?
Long time no Comment..
Anyway its always fun winning the D2 cup seems harder than D1 cup to me, but that’s just me. This team ranking is getting really on my nerves. You start with the default players, and have to straight away think about getting team d ranking, if not mid negotiations are gone out the window. BTW starting again with house rules made this game more interesting. Just I still never get decent youth players at all. Have yet to see Shimizu for 2 PES games. Time to see if Loni will be tempted with a low wage again
great defender for sweet f.a!
heraldo – Thanks for the congrats, and smilies here are done the old-fashioned way with combinations of brackets, colons, and semi-colons. I’m very sparing with them. In my whole several years online I think I must have used smilies less than 10 times in total, and most of the times have been on this blog…
Lakriss – the D2 cup is considerably harder and I’ve really only won it about twice before now. The way it goes for me is that I get eliminated from it before I have a team good enough to win it. When I do have a team good enough to win it, I’ve already been eliminated and the team wins promotion and I never see the tournament again.
No Shimizu in two careers? Something wrong there. Have you done an Advanced search for him by name? Maybe another team bought him before you could see him on the Rookie list.