Off to a semi-flier
Posted by: not-Greg in European Cup (ECC), Schwarz, Treble, tags: European Cup (ECC), Schwarz, TrebleIt’s the start of a very special season. 2014 will, I hope, see me going for the Treble (after first qualifying for the WEFA Championships via the preliminary tournament—a very tall order). If that doesn’t pan out, I hope to ‘only’ win the League, and then go full-bloodedly for the Treble next season. At the very, very worst, I’d like to finish in 2nd place, and thus avoid having to pre-qualify for WEFA next season. But I shouldn’t be thinking about settling for anything less than the Treble. So here goes.
I must not neglect the League in my pursuit of the Treble. It’d be typical of me, going by past PES years’ performances, to ‘do a Liverpool’ and enjoy success in Europe without even getting close to the most important component, the title.
I’ve had a good start in the League, winning 3 and losing 1 of my opening four games. I’m third in the table, just a point behind the current leaders. Playing PES year after year, virtual season after virtual season, the first few games tend to give you an inkling of how the rest of the season is going to go. Based on how these four games have gone, I think I can win the league, but it’ll be tough.
I’m still not as au fait with last-gen PES2008 as I could be. A lot of this is to do with constant swapping between the PSP and PS2 versions. The core gameplay is identical, but the control mechanism and the whole ‘feel’ is different enough for there to be an inevitable period of adjustment—usually about one match, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. In addition, the PSP version is afflicted with some unfortunate PES4-style slowdown when the screen becomes too packed (a rare enough occurrence for the whole game not to be spoiled).
This season’s difficulty has been ramped up by having to go through a full pre-tournament qualifying group stage for the WEFA Championships. From week 1 I’m playing two games every week, a league game, then a WEFA game, then a league game… It’s punishing. It’s always been punishing. It really tests the mettle of a Master League squad to its limits.
So far, results in Europe are mixed. I played Atletico Madrid in game 1, and was chuffed to take an early 1-0 lead, and then go on to completely dominate the whole first half. Schwarz was the goal-scorer. The only black mark was a yellow card for him when I over-enthusiastically tackled back whilst trying to retrieve the ball. And than I accidentally had Schwarz sent off. It happened because I was using Square to press for the ball, and Schwarz auto-slide-tackled an Atletico player, and got another yellow card. Ouch.
Atletico got their equaliser early in the second half and I had another player sent off. Again it was for two yellow cards; again it was vaguely accidental. I wasn’t scything players down for the fun of it. Atletico scored another two goals before the end of the game, winning it 3-1. A terrible start to my WEFA campaign.
Is the Treble attempt over before it’s properly begun? I managed to thump Palermo 3-0, but only drew 1-1 with Sochaux. The table shows the position halfway through the six games. I’m 3 points behind second place. I think I can still qualify for the full tournament, but I’ve been amazed at how fiercely competitive the CPU teams are in Europe. The CPU teams in last-gen PES2008 seem hyper-aggressive to me anyway, but in European games that aggro seems turned up to 11.
If I win two of the remaining three games—especially the one against Sochaux—I’ll qualify. I should be okay, but my confidence is wavering.
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I like the idea of things being turned up a notch in Europe. In the past I have noticed little difference in the difficulty and the style of play between the league and Europe but if there is now a greater difference I see that as a very good thing. Makes it all the more challenging to win the treble.
Not that I’m looking like getting there anytime soon. Halfway through my second season in D2 and I’m rock bottom once again and in real danger of earning myself a game over if i don’t pick it up in the 2nd half of the season. I’m currently sitting on just over 2000 points but with a salary bill of just over 8000.
To make matter worse after 4 straight losses i pulled off a fantastic comeback against Zenit St. Petersberg to win 3-2 after being 2-0 down only for a power cut mid-way through my next game, and stupidly i didn’t have autosave turned on so I now have to play that match again, the 800 points from that victory would have come in very handy.
To this point I have had nobody come in with bids for my players so I wont be holding my breath for another team to come and bail me out by buying up some of my players. Coming into the season I was confident having bought a few decent players but it’s been a repeat story of last season, I’ve won 2 games (should be 3) but have been consistently well beaten in most other games
Anyway the morale to the story is D2 seems a lot tougher in this version than in previous games(or maybe it’s me being used to regularly slotting 5 past the opponents on the next-gen version)
I am back playing PES 2008, hopefully with a cooler, calmer approach.
I have started a Master League with my team Bilbao. I am doing it a little bit differently this time around. I started with match mode players, and with Bilbao in Divsion 1. They are in the Spanish league naturally, with the others being the Premiership, Serie A and then a best of the rest league (with Bayern winning every game it seems). The main difference to make this difficult is every match is 30 minutes long, and I am only allowed to buy Spanish players. I am the same as you (being an average pes player) so I expect this to be very challenging for a long long time.
Nice to see things going well for your team! A couple of buys you should think about- Quagliarella an italian striker and Sknale a Northern Irish SMF. They both start of looking quite poor but Sknale develops really well! I had these both in my old Master League.
stinger - I don’t envy you having to go through the tough (and, I always find, tedious) first season or two with the Default squad. At least on the PS2 version Division 2 is only 8 clubs and it’s never long until the next negotiations. That’s another thing about next-gen game (yes, another thing!) that I didn’t like - 20 teams in the lower division made for an ultra-tedious first season.
Not Given - great that you’re back playing. I get so wound up by the game too sometimes, especially by the PS2 version. I’ve recently started conceding lots of ’sucker-punch’ goals, where I’ll score a goal - usually a vital goal - and then the CPU will kick off and more or less walk the ball into my net, instantly deflating my high spirits. Doh.
Your plays do seem to have some major disapline problems! :p
Lots of cards, some how I rarely aquire them I think I had 5 yellows all of last season (in both the cup and the league). :/
I like your Bilbao idea btw Not-Given I played with them for a while but I was going through a dry-spell and couldn’t score to save my life! I might go back to it in future or do something similar with perhaps another nationality!
I agree with you Greg, I really disliked the idea of a 20 team lower division. However I think we can let Konami off on that one as that was something that was heavily requested by fans of the game rather than a decision that they made.
The only problem with an 8 team lower division is it gives a lot less time to aquire the points needed to pay the bills at the end of the season, the issue that I will face over this 2nd half of the season and unless I get some decent offers for my players, chances are I wont be able to bring in anyone new
Paww - I do pick up more cards than I should. This is because I’m not very good at defending. I find it incredibly hard to cope with the CPU players when they want to wriggle through 3 of my players to get a goal-scoring chance, so I tend to opt for professional fouls and I randomly hack players down when I desperately want to protect a lead. Naughty of me I know, but slowly I’m getting better at defending.
stinger - to be fair to Konami about another aspect of next-gen PES2008, for years we’ve been griping about pace not really meaning anything in PES and slow defenders being able to match and overtake fast strikers. We asked them to make a version where pace does actually count. So they did make it and it all but ruined PES!
And I had a similar problem to yours in my first couple of seasons of this career. I had to get rid of so many players to come in under the wage budget. I played a season with a squad of 16 players. It was tough but it concentrated my mind and I did quite well.
If you have a format you enjoy (My case being the Premiership/Championship) I don’t mind the full 20 team in the second division.
Especially now I think I’ve cracked PES2008 (without the silly running and tap-ins!) Playing as Charlton (in my game they’re probably just in the ‘top 10′ on overall stats) and I’m 3 games off mid-negotiations with a 11 point lead. No wonder players either as its the first season! I’m going for a mostly english team inspired by the Bilbao thing stinger posted.
I think reason the I’ve been doing well is down to my goals conceaded is 3. Scored I think 25 or something so quite a good goal difference. Really does seem to be able about paying attention to where your defenders are! Its ever so easy to get over-excited with defending and as for some bizzare reason they want to come up to midfield you have to just make sure you drag them back in to position and hold firm, seems to be working well so far!
Obviously I haven’t had to deal with ‘world-class’ quality yet which I hopefully will next season in the premiership!
And your right the extra 12 teams mean lots more oppotunities to make money!