Doing the loco-promotion Comments Off
It’s the end of season 2009 in my second Master League career. I’m playing as a team called Singers FC—the original name of my real-life team, Coventry City.
I actually did some proper research this week and discovered that, properly speaking, it should be Singer’s FC. The local company that gave its name to the fledgling football club was called Singer, not Singers. I think I’m going to leave the name as it is. This is the internet. People tend not to bother about apostrophes, superfluous or otherwise, on the internet.
Going into the last five games of the season I was top of the league and ten points clear of the team in fourth place. Only a truly calamitous collapse in form would stop me getting promoted. Promotion, then, was a certainty. But promotion wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to win the league.
Genoa 0-1 Singers FC
I dominated the game and won it with a Caracciolo header. The scoreline wasn’t a true reflection of the game. 5-0 to me would not have been flattering.
AEK Athens 1-1 Singers FC
An utterly frustrating game that I should have won by a hatful again, but could only manage to score one. Athens, always a tricky team to play against, got their equaliser late on. These last two games have left me with the distinct feeling that I’m going to have to play very, very cagily, with maximum discipline and concentration, if I’m to have any chance of holding onto 1st place and winning the title. In other words: PES2008 knows what’s at stake, and is altering its shape accordingly.
After the game, I saw that I was mathematically promoted:
At last. It’s taken me three seasons again, which isn’t good (I keep sayin‘ I’m only an average player…). But I’m there now—next season I’ll be playing in Division 1 of the Superleague, with the likes of Barcelona, Man Utd, AC Milan, all of them.
Now to wrap up the Division 2 title.
Atalanta 0-3 Singers FC
A fine win with a brace from Kmolo – it keeps me top of the league on goal difference. Espanyol are breathing down my neck. I don’t think they’ll drop any points between now and the end of the season, so the pressure’s on me to keep winning.
Spartak 2-1 Singers FC
A terrible game for me. I was 0-1 up and cruising when… something happened. I’ve said it so many times before that I won’t go through it again. Suffice to say that I felt as if I was strangling my controller and that I had never played with any of my players before.
After the game I had to make a note in my notebook. When you keep a PES blog, you also keep a notebook where you jot down stray words and phrases to remind yourself how the game(s) went….
As expected, Espanyol won their game. Singers FC dropped to second place in the table. It was all on the last game. I had to win and hope that Espanyol lost. There was no other way.
Marseille 3-1 Singers FC
Seriously annoyed by this game.
As it turned out, it would have made no difference even if I’d won 10-0. Espanyol won their last game. The final table:
Final position: 2nd (grrr)
Won:21 Drew:9 Lost:8
Goals scored:69 Goals conceded:39 Goal difference:+30
Yellow cards: 27 Red cards: 9
I scored more goals than anyone else this season, but I also conceded more goals than any team outside the bottom 4. That, ultimately, is why this was a trophyless season. I’ll have to tighten up at the back to have any chance in Division 1 next season.
So, the main negotiation period is coming up. 8 glorious weeks of horse-trading and wheeler-dealering… if I want to. I’m toying with the idea of declaring a transfer embargo for my squad. I’d still sell any players that a higher-ranked CPU team came in for (as per my House Rules) and then replace them, but I wouldn’t buy any new players myself.
It might be interesting to see how far I can get in Division 1 of the Superleague with this small squad and its relatively few outstanding players.