Before kicking things off here in the Superleague Division 1, it might be interesting to take a look at the teams I’ll be going up against every week. It’s quite a line-up:
I’m pleased to note that Aston Villa are the weakest-looking team in the division (after Singers FC, of course, what with my transfer embargo and all).
The first game of the season is a good one to get things underway: Valencia at home. Playing either at home or away doesn’t seem to make much difference in PES Master League, but I like to mention it anyway. It’s good for the immersion factor.
I started the game well—showing form as good as my pre-season form, if not slightly better. This season I’m keenly conscious of the fact that I’m setting out to play the best club teams in PES2008 (and Aston Villa) with a team that was only good enough to finish second in Division 2. In years past I would never have dared to believe I could play in the top division with a squad like this one right now. Ah, but this is next-gen PES2008—universally condemned as the easiest PES ever—so I should be okay. Right?
Valencia scored midway through the first half, against the run of play. I was sloppy. I defended badly, rashly committing to slide tackles when I should have been content to block and harry. I also charged my keeper out far too early, giving the Valencia attacker time to compose himself and fake-shoot and sidestep and score…
This is not how I wanted to start the season.
I started trying to get the equaliser, wondering if I could stay out of the bottom 3 until the mid-season negotiations. But I needn’t have worried. In the space of two game minutes, things were turned around.
Midway through the second half, Lagutz—in many ways my squad’s forgotten man—netted this delicious diving header from a speculative cross:
And then a few moments later, Lagutz scored another one, this time from an Andy Cole cutback:
There are many PES players who revile the use of cutbacks—but since when has playing a square ball across the box for a teammate to run onto been an illicit manoeuvre in the game of football? Since never, is when.
Lagutz was the hero of this fine 2-1 win, which gets my first season in the top division off to a good start—if not exactly a flying start. In truth I could and should have scored a couple more goals, but I’ve got to be content with the victory after falling behind in the way I did. I’ll settle for being in fourth place after one game.
My next opponents? Real Madrid… When I set up the Superleague, this is the kind of weekly challenge against top sides that I wanted. And here it is.
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I find it much harder to play at home than away in PES8.
Mirandinha - Again we’re dealing with two completely different versions of the game. In next-gen PES2008, I notice no difference. However, I will be getting my hands on the PSP version of the game—soon!—and will probably start a Master League on that, and cover it here on the blog.