In my last league game I took on Barcelona and comfortably beat them 2-0. As so often happens in PES2008, Barcelona were also my opponents in the first-leg D1 Cup match immediately afterward.

That was okay by me. At the start of this season I was looking forward to playing Barcelona in particular. Two games against them in a row is a special treat.

As in the league game—and as in PES2008 as a whole over the last few days—I found it all a bit too easy, and went into a 0-2 lead (the match was at their place). Perhaps this made me careless, or perhaps the game decided I’d had too easy a ride lately. Barcelona stormed back into things, playing some lovely stuff around the edge of my box, I have to say. The final score was 2-2. It was careless of me to let them back in like that, but at least I didn’t lose the game and I have two precious away goals.

I won my next two league games, against Ajax and Chelsea. I scored four goals in both games, with only Chelsea managing one in reply. Kmolo got two goals in one game, Caracciolo a hat trick in the other. I’ve got mobile phone video clips of some of the goals somewhere, but I’m not going to post them. I’m introducing a new policy when it comes to goal replays.

From now on, the only goal replays that will be seen on this blog will be of special or significant goals. For too long I’ve used goal replay clips as ways of breaking up the page and making it easier on the eye. YouTube tells me that most of the clips are watched about a dozen times, on average. So in the future if you do see a goal replay clip posted on this blog, you’ll know the goal will be exceptional or peculiar in some way, and well worth watching.

Back at the game, I hosted Juventus—and my winning streak came to an abrupt end. I’m afraid it was one of those games where the CPU scrambled an early goal and then stubbornly resisted my 70% possession and 25 shots (16 on target) for the remainder of the game. In addition, the infamous pause that afflicts all of my players when they receive the ball in prime position to shoot from distance was magnified by a couple of orders. It was as if that ball was suddenly made of solid lead when it got to their feet, and they had to take just enough time on it to allow the CPU players to close me down. Ho hum.

An extremely dodgy game all round, that one. If I had time I’d have replayed it several times just to see how dodgy it was. But overall I can’t really complain. I’ve had a good run in the league and I’ve got a great chance of progressing in the cup. My first season in Division 1 of the Superleague continues to exceed all expectations.

It’s well-known in the real-life professional game, by fans, players, and coaches alike, that a former player returning to play against an old club is more likely to score a goal than not score a goal. It’s just the way it works. The former player always scores.

It seems to work that way in PES2008 as well. I’m fully resigned to having my former ace striker Elcherino score against me every time I meet him in another team’s colours.

He’s still with Real Zaragoza at the moment—although the day cannot be far away when I buy him back just to put him on my bench and keep him there. My current House Rules forbid me from playing him in my team. The whole sorry Elcherino saga bubbled up over the Christmas and New Year period, and almost derailed my next-gen PES2008 career permanently. At the moment I’m taking a dim view of next-gen PES2008, but it’s not Elcherino’s or anybody else’s fault really. The game is just too easy. That’s its problem in a nutshell.

I went 0-1 up against Zaragoza (at their ground) and was cruising. Elcherino wasn’t in their starting line-up. He came on in the second half and got their equaliser almost immediately—a simple tap-in from a CPU cutback. I managed to keep him quiet after that, and scored my winner in the dying moments just when I’d resigned myself to a frustrating draw. 1-2 to me. Take that, Elcherino.

Next were one of the division pace-setters—Inter Milan, the wet dream-team of many an online PES2008 player. This one was a draw, 2-2. I was 2-0 up and comfortable with it, but started to get a little over-enthusiastic in my tackling as I tried to keep it that way. I had Matuzalem sent off, and Inter got it back to 2-1. Then I had Jackson sent off and they got it back to 2-2. I had several chances to score more goals myself but missed them all.

After Inter Milan, I had to play Barcelona. It was the game I’d been waiting for all season.

This screen was not what I wanted to see before the game:

What great timing. It’s only the biggest game of my season so far. Thanks, France.

(Incidentally, looking at that screenshot, it strikes me that for all the Internet chatter about greengrocer’s apostrophes and whatnot, a good case could be made for the exclamation mark being the single most overused and abused punctuation mark in the English language! They seem to be scattered everywhere!!)

I decided to just get on and do without Mathieu—no great loss, really, as he’s still not yet the triple-A player I knew in PES5 and PES6. Pjinatnigh came in at DMF. The remainder of my team was mostly fit and in form.

Melengue got the first goal—a sort of wonder dribble, but he only beat two Barcelona players before scoring, so it doesn’t really count. (A true wonder dribble, which can be accomplished in every single game in next-gen PES2008, sees the player ghosting past almost the entire opposition.)

Caracciolo got me another goal in the second half. Here it is:

And that’s how it finished. Singers FC 2-0 Barcelona. I am dumbfounded to be top of the league after 12 games.

As ever, Sunday is other football game day on PES Chronicles. Except… apart from a token few matches on next-gen FIFA08, I haven’t really played any other football games this week.

I’m currently going through a dark time with next-gen PES2008. It turns out that my draconian House Rules (well, I think they’re draconian) might not be tough enough. Once again I find myself more or less going through the motions in far too many games. This might be down to me being very busy with other stuff away from PES over the past week or so. I’ve got a few days off work next week so I’ll see how the leisure time affects my play.

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Dagenham & Redbridge are near the top of Coca Cola League 2 in my second next-gen FIFA08 manager mode career. Playing this game so infrequently nowadays means that I’m struggling to do anything except draw 0-0 or 1-1. My previous two games were both 0-0, then it looked like the last game of the session was going to end 1-1. Not good enough really, and it was all going to cost me in the end. If I slipped down to fourth place and missed out on promotion I’d probably quit the entire manager mode career and go back to my Coventry City galacticos.

Ah, but in the last minute of stoppage time, Huckerby popped up in the box:

A fine looping header over the keeper. I know that I keep saying it about FIFA08, but this goal was another rarity. Most of my headers fly past the post or over the bar for no apparent reason. Did the game want me to score that goal? Are football video gamers amongst the most paranoid people on earth?

Apart from these three games on FIFA08, I haven’t touched any other football game.

I’m still waiting to get a new PC on which to play Football Manager 2008. That’ll be sometime in the summer.

I’ve still to play LMA Manager 2007 on the Xbox360. Maybe I’ll give that a whirl sometime this week.

Sensible Soccer might as well not exist for me. It was the most pointless £7 (or whatever it was) that I’ve ever spent on a game. I’m sure Sensi is a lot of fun for its dedicated fans, but as I said a few weeks ago I missed out on the game the first time around—in the mid-90s—and it’s possibly too late for me to get into it now. I will definitely give it another try for at least a couple of continuous hours. (So far I’ve only managed short bursts of twenty minutes here, half an hour there.) That will be the last test. Sensible Soccer is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon. At least it won’t be short of company at the bar…

Maybe I’ll finally lose my patience with next-gen PES2008 and admit defeat and just get the vastly superior (it now seems clear) PS2 version. I know that at least one reader of this blog will be nodding and thinking I told him so…