PES Chronicles

One of my players may have to go. When the mid-season negotiations come along, I may have to exchange him for another player, or even release him.

I’m talking about my talented left-sided AMF, Melengue. (Actually he’s right-footed, but can play on either side.) Of late I have started to go on wonder dribbles with him. What is a wonder dribble? This is a wonder dribble:

That’s a goal I scored with my right-back, Guimaraes, in my last Master League career.

People who have not played PES2008 on the PS3 (or on the Xbox360 or PC) have a hard time believing that goals like the above were scored on Top Player difficulty. They look like goals scored on Beginner difficulty in old-gen PES.

But no: they’re scored on Top Player, and they’re easy to do in every game, against any opposition, with almost any player if you’re determined enough. This is precisely why so many of us are down on next-gen PES2008. You have to see it and experience it for yourself to (dis)believe it. (How could they ever have thought it would pass muster? Curse you, Seabass.)

By my own House Rules I am not allowed to have any players who are—or who might become—routine wonder dribblers in the Guimaraes/Elcherino mode. Most players can do the wonder dribble, but with a certain type of player (far too many) it’s effortless to do the wonder dribble.

And Melengue looks as if he’s turning into a wonder dribbler.

He scored my winner in a 0-1 victory at Liverpool. It was a bit of a wonder dribble, beating two men on the wing, cutting inside and beating two more, and slotting the ball home with insulting ease. In any PES before PES2008, scoring a goal like that would have had me off my seat and running around the room, screaming like a lunatic. Really. But in next-gen PES2008, such goals are as common as muck. I barely twitched an eyelid and I didn’t even watch the replay.

Melengue was unfit for the next game against top-of-the-table Man Utd. This one ended 2-2, a result I was happy with after going behind twice. I had Matuzalem sent off late on. That was my first red card this season.

Melengue was back against Newcastle, and again scored the winner in a 1-0 victory—and again it was a wonder dribble.

People can say: don’t use the wonder dribble. But with the player on the park and the ball at his feet, where is the line to be drawn? Are one-twos to be banned as well, because of the ease with which they can scythe open a CPU defence at certain times?

For me, the only way to deny myself the use of the wonder dribble is not to play with those players who can do it easily. This is an alarming number of players—who has ever heard of Melengue?!

I’ll be keeping a careful eye on him. If he keeps it up, I’ll bench him and then get rid of him in the mid-season negotiations.