PES Chronicles

Not the snappiest post title I’ve ever come up with, but it conveys the situation well enough.

Singers FC are now operating under a transfer embargo.

I’m calling a halt to all new players coming in. I’m not allowed to buy anyone else, ever. (Naturally, if it proves to be horrifically tough, I’ll review matters at the end of the season.)

I’m going to try to win the Superleague Division 1 title, and then the Treble, with my current squad of mostly rather mediocre players.

With 5 Default players in my already-limited squad of 25, effectively I have 20 players with which to take on the world. The Defaulters can be good, but most often they’re a liability. The only thing they’re really useful for, I’ve found, is giving my regular players a rest. The exact science of how and when to deploy the Default players will continue to occupy me over the coming season(s).

Only Camacho could be classed a true superstar at the moment, and even he is very much in the unfinished category. Perhaps Marcelo, my left-sided defender/midfielder, is the only complete, fully-rounded player in my team. The likes of Mathieu, Maldini, Kompany, and Andy Cole will all be great—but how soon will they be great? And can I win things with them in the meantime?

That’s what I aim to find out. Considering that I finished last season in Division 2 rather lamely, stumbling down to second place after having the title there in front of me for the taking, I anticipate challenging times ahead. Could I be letting myself in for a titanic relegation battle?

It was very strange to merely press my way through all of the negotiation weeks without searching for players or bidding for players. I didn’t even have any bids from the CPU to deal with (which was a relief; if the CPU had come shopping, I’d most likely have lost a top player).

I played my traditional two pre-season friendlies. The first was against a World XI. Here was their team:

My team was the usual First XI as seen above right. The team that finished second in Division 2. What am I doing? Am I crazy?

But I dominated the World XI team. I bossed all of the play, winning tackles and corners, having shots on goal. I saw this game as an early indicator of how I will do with this squad in Division 1 of the Superleague.

I’ll have to concentrate and play well in every single game, it seems—there’ll be no ‘autopilot’ games allowed. Despite playing so well I failed to score, and in the middle of the second half I was punished. They won a penalty, which Buffon, the World XI goalkeeper, stepped up to take. He scored, and the game finished 1-0 to them, but I had fun for the remaining time by deliberately conceding corners—which Buffon came forward to take—and trying to score into their empty net. (I never managed it. The CPU will do everything it can, fair and foul, to stop you scoring when its keeper is away from the goal.)

So that was slightly disappointing but not, I think, a true indicator of how the season will go with this squad. I think my second and final pre-season friendly was more like it. I played Bolton, and somehow managed to have Andy Cole sent off after three minutes. But I won 3-1 anyway, with 10 men.

Of course Bolton are nowhere near the quality of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus, and the rest of the teams who I’ll soon be playing week in, week out, in the forthcoming season. But at least I’ll be starting with confidence. If you have confidence in PES, it’s like having a red arrow and a full stamina bar next to your own name, permanently.