Singers FC: pre-season negotiations 2009 10
The first week of negotiations immediately presented me with a dilemma. Two CPU teams made bids for my players. One bid was 5000 points for Ruskin; the other bid was 7800 points for Altintop.
Both players were key members of my squad, especially Altintop with his burgeoning talent. What to do?
Okay. I’ve been thinking about doing this, and I’m going to do it: I’m changing my House Rules to include a rule that I heard about elsewhere.
From now on, “if a higher-ranked side comes in for a player, and offers the listed price or greater, he must be sold.”
This means I had to sell Ruskin and Altintop, right now. It hurt, but I did it. Away they went.
The point of this kind of House Rule is to make the transfer market more realistic. In reality a team that finished 6th from bottom of a league’s lower division (as I did last season) would never be able to keep a player that a better team wanted to buy. Even if the club declined the offer, the player himself would most likely rebel and the team would be unsettled. So in most cases it’s best to sell such players. That’s how the dynamics of the transfer marketplace operate in the real world, and now it’s in my Master League career as well.
But… I’ve got to include a personal caveat with the new House Rule.
Master League, for me, is immersive and compulsive for many reasons. One of those reasons is being able to get young players with average abilities and grow them over many seasons into superstars. I would sorely miss this aspect of Master League if I had to sell my best youngsters as soon as they showed a spark of a talent.
So I won’t sell them. Not all of them. I’m going to designate three members of my squad as protected players—they don’t have to be sold if bids come in for them. Two of those three players will be Camacho and Maldini.
And the third protected player will be… Mathieu.
I finally got him. Flush with cash from the sales of Altintop and Ruskin, I made two straight bids (just money, no exchanges) for Mathieu and a decent-looking striker called Cassano. Both bids were successful.
Throughout my first ML career as Coventry City, for five full seasons, I tried and failed to sign Mathieu, even when my team ranking was ‘A’ and then ‘S’. I have no idea why I’ve suddenly been successful in getting him this time around.
For the past three PES years, Mathieu has been the rock upon which I have built my teams. I’ve never played him as a left-back (unless injuries or suspensions have forced me to). Mathieu’s best position in PES is his alternate DMF position. Not even the likes of Gerrard has played better for me as a DMF through all the years.
Here’s Mathieu on the pitch in my first pre-season friendly, wearing the sky blue of Singers FC. I could hardly stop cackling with maniacal glee…
I hope Mathieu will be as good for me in PES2008 as he was in the last few versions. I’ll file a full report on his progress toward the middle of the coming season. If he’s anything like his illustrious counterparts in PES5 and PES6, I should have scored a couple of super-long-range blockbusters with him by then. Here’s hoping.
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I bought a versatile WF called Melengue in a trade deal that saw Recoba depart from my squad. (Good riddance to Recoba: a good player, but absurdly unfit almost all the time. He only ever played about 1 game in 6.)
I also plucked a celebrated PES name out of the Youth list: Kompany, a CB. Both Melengue and Kompany are pictured to the left. Melengue has the most ridiculous hairstyle of any player I’ve seen on PES2008 so far. Kompany merely looks a bit camp. (Or kamp?)
I’ve never actually played with Kompany before, so I don’t know what to expect. At least the name ‘Kompany’ is rich in punning possibilities. If he has a couple of poor performances that materially affect my results, I’ll go straight for Bad Kompany, no messing.
I also picked up a decent young CB from the Rookies list called Serrano. Hiding in the Unbelonging list (always a must-see list for the stingy-minded ML manager) I found a great Brazilian left back called Marcelo. I needed a replacement for Ruskin. Marcelo and Bale will swap the left-back position between them.
I could have got plenty more players. Most of the cash from the Altintop and Ruskin transfers is still unspent. I’ve still got an excess amount of Default players in the squad. I could’ve gone mad on the transfer market if I wanted to. But I’m happy enough with the players I’ve brought in. I don’t want to buy new ones just for the sake of it. I’ll save my money to strengthen my squad in the mid-season period if necessary.
Here’s my new First XI and my 25-man squad in full:
Maldini drops to the bench, but he’ll still play in almost every game at either CB or SB. PES2008’s ‘quirky’ fitness and stamina modelling guarantees it. Caracciolo takes Altintop’s place as lead striker. Cassano displaces Kmolo. (And something occurs to me: 9 of my 25 players—over one third—have names that end in -O. I could easily assemble a novelty team made up entirely of such players. That might be one to think about for the future…)
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Pre-season friendlies. I only played the two matches that were chosen for me. Usually I like to skip pre-season friendlies completely, but when you have a lot of new players it’s always best to play a couple of meaningless games to enable them to settle down quicker. It still takes many more games for Teamwork levels to come up to scratch, but at least with two friendlies you’re getting a head start.
My friendly opponents were Lokomotiv Moscow and a South American Stars selection. I drew 1-1 with Lokomotiv. I was able to field most of my new signings from the start. Marcelo and Melengue are both very quick down the left side. Mathieu seems just as solid as ever, although I didn’t get any clear-cut chances to test his famous long-range shooting. They’ll come.
In the second game against the South American Globetrotters, I took a pounding. I was 0-3 down at half-time. Kompany was sent off as my frustrations grew. Somehow I prevented them from scoring any more goals, and then I noticed that their goalkeeper was taking all of their corners and free kicks. Near the end of the game, I got a consolation goal after one of their corners…
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And so to business. There’s real talent in this squad and I plan to challenge for the title, not just push for promotion. Plus I’ve got Mathieu at last…