Stop making sense
Posted by: not-Greg in D1 Cup, European Cup (ECC), European Masters Cup, Treble, tags: D1 Cup, European Cup (ECC), European Masters Cup, TrebleWell, that didn’t last long. The Treble is off. The story so far: after several seasons of struggle, this season—2014—was my first chance to go for all 3 big prizes: League, Cup, WEFA Championship (i.e. the European Cup). The only drawback was that I had to go through the preliminary WEFA qualifying tournament after only finishing in 5th place last season.
I’ve always disliked having to pre-qualify. It seems to swell a season to interminable lengths, making it feel about a third longer than usual. I don’t think I’ve ever gone on to win a WEFA Championship after being in the pre-qualifiers. And this season isn’t going to change that record.
I’ve been dumped from the main WEFA tournament after some pretty shocking performances against some fast, skilful, and hyper-aggressive opponents in Europe. My group opponents were Atletico Madrid, Palermo, and some outfit called Sochaux whom I’d never heard of until they showed up here. (Shame on me, probably. I bet they’re famous, wherever they’re from.)
Atletico pounded me in both fixtures. Sochaux beat me in one game and I managed to get a draw off them in the other. I beat Palermo comfortably in our first game, then in the second—the last fixture of the qualifying group—I needed to beat them by a couple of goals to stand an outside chance of stealing second place from Sochaux.
Alas, as ever in PES (you’ve got to love it), none of my 30,000 attempts on goal found the back of the net. I hit both posts. I hit the crossbar—twice. And of course Palermo scored with their one chance during their one attack. Sometimes, you just have to hold your hands up and acknowledge that some things were never meant to be. As it turned out, even if I had beaten Palermo 15-0 (as I could have done) it would’ve made no difference. Sochaux beat Atletico. I wouldn’t have overtaken them.
So I have to be content with third place in the qualifying group—which at least puts me into the WEFA Masters Cup. I hardly ever get to play for that trophy. I don’t think I’ve actually won it more than about three times in all my years on PES. By the time you get good enough to win it, you’re in the WEFA Championships anyway. So it really is a consolation prize for the one season when you’re neither bad nor good, but good enough to take part in the WEFA Masters. I hope all of that makes sense…
At least now I can concentrate on the league. I have to go full-tilt for my secondary goal of ‘only’ winning the league—at the very, very least, I want to finish in the top 2 and avoid the qualifying tournament next season.
After 11 league games I’m still in third spot, 7 points off first, and only 2 points off second. Schwarz has been immense - a monster of a player. No one can stop him when he’s fully fit and on form. Giggs is starting to come good. Kim Cyun Hi—my great hope for the future—is playing in some games and doing well, even getting the odd goal.
Things are looking good for the league. I’m hopeful in that direction. Confident, even. But I went and got myself knocked out of the D1 Cup immediately after the WEFA tournament disappontment. So the league’s all I’ve got now. Just the league, and nothing else. It’s a shame I’ve already used the post title ‘Now we can concentrate on the league‘, otherwise I’d be using it here, where it’s even more appropriate than it was there.
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Disappointing to hear that you have been knocked out of both cups but I do see a shining light in all of this. It shows that the PS2 version of PES2008 is exactly what it should be, a game that will challenge you significantly even when you have a good squad.
I’d imagine that in the next-gen game if you had the same squad you would win all 3 trophies with constant 8-3 wins and that isn’t what PES is about. Once i finally pull myself out of D2 (if I manage to avoid a game over) I have no doubts I will thoroughly enjoy being challenged no matter what squad I put together.
It’s frustrating being beaten but at the same time satisfying to know it’s never going to be a walk in the park. It’s good to know that even playing at your best, with your best available players that victory is never a certain thing.
Boo stinger leave ‘next-gen’ alone! The right tweaks its a good game.
I like to keep a sense of reality about my teams as well so no big chopping and changing with the right team (a below average one) the game is a challenge.
I’ve never failed to qualify before to playin the WEFA Masters so had no real idea what its like. Hopefully for your stress levels its not quite as ‘aggressive’.
Sochaux are a french team, thats all I know really. They’re probably a mid-table french team mate, which means in real life they’re crap. Not to piss on your team though!
Its a strange league you’ve got going there, is there a post where I can find whos in the whole league?
stinger - I think this is the most challenging PES, for me, since PES5, my previous favourite. Back then it took me about 12 seasons to win a Treble, and I played on for about 40 seasons in total, only winning another two or three more.
Every now and then in this PES2008 I’ll play a game where my super-squad really dominates the CPU team and I thrash them, and I’ll think that I’ve got last-gen PES2008 sussed. But then the next game it’ll be tight and tough again. I’ve really got that same kind of feeling I had from PES5 - that it’ll always give me a good game. I’m loving it at the moment.
Paww - We’re never going to agree about the next-gen version! I don’t think we should have to have House Rules or deliberately limit how we play the game. If it’s possible to go on a wonder dribble with Gary Neville and score the kind of goal that’d make Maradona proud—on the hardest difficulty level!—then that’s not a good football game IMO and no amount of self-limiting makes up for it. The pain is slowly starting to ease as I get deeper into the PS2/PSP version.
Re. the league I’m in, it’s one provided by the game. Way back when the PSP version landed on my doormat (before I had the PS2 version) I set up a Master League in a rush to get started. It’s a curious blend of La Liga, with a few ’strangers’ such as Strasbourg and Rangers and others. I don’t think there’s a single blog post here where every team is listed. I’ll snap a few shots of the whole league over the next day or so and post it up.
I don’t feel like I’m really playing to house rules or limiting myself in this case. Other times yes I put in elaborate rules in place to keep myself from going stupid.
Now I’m playing Charlton which is my team, very much how I’m sure if you had a Championship patch you would want to try and play it with Coventry and their players instead of defaults. Its exactly what I’m doing. With signings I’m just trying to play to a bit of realism, I don’t have too I just enjoy the game more.
I managed in 3 seasons with defaults on top difficulity winning (D2 League D2 Cup/D1 League D1 Cup and Euro) and that was with signing who ever I wanted (including the Classic players) and waltz to it in the 3rd season with a massive squad of players that would make Chelsea’s squad look poor). It wasn’t as much fun and got no statisfaction from it either.
But now you mention it I do remember you saying about your over eagerness to get it started. So no super league this time, but with the added difficulity of it on the PS2 version sounds it wasn’t a bad thing you rushed in to it after all. :p
Keep me posted on Gigg’s btw, I’ve never signed him as a Youth before Btw I did get Andy Cole and he was brilliant from the start for me (He was my super-sub even though he was undeveloped) he was the ultimate goal poacher!
Paww - Giggs has come alive for me recently. He’s been bloody brilliant, in fact. I’ve started playing him regularly as a left-sided CF and the goals are flying in. I’ve got a cracking replay of a Giggs goal that I’ll be posting in due course…
Fair play to you for persevering with the next-gen game, although as you say with the nature of the game it’s far, far too easy when you assemble a squad of good players.
Paww - Like grg said fair play to you for sticking with the next-gen game but I just couldn’t do it. It’s great that you play the game a certain way and it keeps it (relatively) challenging.
The way I play however is very similar to greg in the sense that I like to build a team up over many, many seasons, often with youth players who will go on to become superstars (not just the normal names like Schwarz etc you here around all the time though) and to do that on the next-gen game will result in stupid scorelines. The line in the sand was drawn for me when I beat Newcastle 10-0 with what I thought was far from a top side and literally every shot I had that was on target ended in a goal (in fact I think i had only 8 on target shots during the game, that last goal was an own goal or a deflection