PES Chronicles

After yesterday’s comedy collision non-detection show, I returned to the game today with a renewed sense of purpose. Well, that’s a grand way of saying “I got over it”.

I played a lot better, passing well and digging deep when necessary to shut out the CPU. My new players have fully gelled within the team now. That certainly helps.

Sadly, I still haven’t scored a long-ranger with Mathieu from the DMF position, although it’s not for want of trying. Defensively I have no complaints—he’s almost the perfect DMF right now. He would be wasted at left back. But on the attacking front he’s relatively weak. He needs at least a season’s development to get that extra burst of pace and strength needed in PES2008. He’ll come good, I’m sure of it.

I started my winning run with victories over Parma and Benfica by the same scoreline: 3-2. After the Benfica match I was up to 4th in the table.

Next were Napoli, who gave me a surprisingly tough game that I won 2-0. Lagutz scored one of them, a nice finish that hits the upper rear corner of the net:

Blackburn are something of a bogey side for me in this career. But I beat them 2-0 as well. Here are both goals, with Camacho—putting in another stellar performance—featuring throughout:

Camacho scores the first after my corner is—for once—only partially cleared and he manages to smuggle the ball away from the CPU player. The second goal—finished by Cassano, his first of the season—is a great team goal. Camacho lays the ball out wide, and then supplies the killer pass moments later when play works its way back to him. That second goal really shows the benefits of a 4-3-3 formation.

Finally in this run of five straight wins I met Celtic, an unpredictable team at the best of times. Which Celtic would I get—hard Celtic or easy Celtic?

It was hard Celtic, and I was fortunate to scrape a 1-0 win. Bale scored the goal just before half time, a scuffed shot from the edge of the box after a period of pressure.

The whole of the second half was very hard for me. Celtic enjoyed possession just about all the way through it. My passing went suspiciously AWOL. Several times I was holding the analogue stick firmly in the north-west direction (for example), and the ball would go north-east—straight to a Celtic player. That kind of thing just kept happening. It was nothing to do with me, I swear. I had players out in the open in the directions I was trying to pass. Stoopid game…

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Five wins on the bounce, then, and I’m up to 2nd in the league table. This should definitely be a promotion year.

I hope I’m not speaking too soon there.