After suffering the worst of all possible starts to this season, things have settled down. I’ve started to play well and put money in the bank. Perhaps that hair-raising defeat was just what I needed to shock me out of my complacency with PES2008. Several months spent playing the (in my opinion) utterly terrible, un-PES-like next-gen version of the game really left me with the feeling that all I had to do to win was turn up.
I’ve got 3000 points in the bank to play with, but after almost wrecking my career last season and having to release 7 players to get my wage bill down, I won’t get caught like that again. I’m not going to spend any money on transfer fees for players at this stage.
Even if I wanted to spend, there’s just not much quality on the market. Notoriously, the Unbelonging list seems never to be populated. The Openness to Negotiation list (the poor man’s Unbelonging list) is packed with clapped-out thirtysomethings just half a season from retirement.
I stopped off at the Youth list (I will never, ever call it the ‘Rookie’ list) and picked up 4 players. Not just for their own sake but to bulk out my seriously depleted squad. Here they are:
Djordjevic - a left-sided AMF. I don’t remember him from any previous PES but his starting stats look good and I need a dedicated left-footed midfielder.
Larsson - the legendary CF. I’ve played with him a few times in the past few PESes and he is a great striker to have at your disposal. A veritable goal machine.
Cervantes - a solid, dependable CMF/AMF to have on the bench. I can’t remember when the PES powers-that-be started calling youth players after celebrated names from the world of art and literature. Was it PES5? I think it was. In PES5 I remember at one point having Borges in goal, Maupassant in defence, Cervantes in midfield, and, er, Teddy Sheringham up front.
Roberto Carlos - really pleased to snap him up before a CPU team grabbed him.
These new players are all unfinished 17-year-olds, so they won’t be tearing up trees or tilting at windmills any time soon. What they will bring me, immediately, is some welcome respite for my experienced players.
I’m gunning for promotion at the end of this season, and now I think I can get it. What’s kept my results patchy so far has been the fatigue factor. My players were all knackered all the time. They almost never had a rest. That can change now.
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