By the Lords of Komol
Posted by: not-Greg in Komol, Real Madrid, league table, tags: Komol, league table, Real MadridFrack it! I drew a game against Heracles Almelo—one of the most annoying teams in the league—which allowed Real Madrid to overtake me at the top of the table. How could I let this happen? Here in Week 25 there’s not much room for manoeuvre.
It’s season 2015 of my first career on the excellent so-called ‘last-gen’ version of PES2008. I’m playing the PS2 version on the PlayStation3, and transferring my save file to the PSP, and back again, as required. I’m going for the Treble this season—League, Cup, European Cup—after failing dismally last season. I’m an average PES player and it’s taken me until now to assemble a squad that could (should) allow my limited talents to be successful. (One day soon I’m going to rearrange the side-bar and have a ‘Previously on PES Chronicles’-type spiel sitting just to the right there. It’ll save me feeling I have to recap for new readers every couple of posts.)
I’ve got a veritable ton of great players. One of those great players is a made-up Konami player that I’ve never come across before until this year. His name is Komol and he’s one the best strikers I’ve ever played with. Particularly in his mid-20s, when I could rely on getting a hat-trick with him if I concentrated hard and really went for it.
Komol isn’t among the very greatest of strikers. It has to be said. He’s not in that very top tier, the domain of legends. He’s small and he lacks real pace. He’s not quite as lightweight on the ball as Shimizu; nor is he as lumberingly slow as Schwarz—but he’s in that whole general area. Despite these drawbacks I’ve loved playing with him and scoring all the goals that he’s scored (including one of my greatest-ever PES goals).
I got him way, way back, towards the start of this career. I think you never forget the strikers who were with you at or near the start, the ones who set you on the road to glory (if that’s the road I’m on). No matter how devastatingly brilliant any of your later uber-strikers in your galactico squads can be, they never quite manage to erase from memory those early journeymen—the above-average, and the merely very good players who first started knocking in the goals for you.
Komol is still playing a key role even now, today. He’s in my First XI for more than sentimental reasons. He plays solidly and reliably, game in, game out—although Giggs is almost ready to take that first-choice place up there on the left.
I met Real Madrid in the Quarter Final of the WEFA Championships. The first leg was away, at their place, so I was hungry for some away goal, and a clean sheet wouldn’t go amiss either. Like Barcelona, I haven’t really had any trouble getting results against Real Madird so far. This match was more of the same. I won it easily, 0-2 to me. Komol got both goals.
That was the first of three consecutive games against Real Madrid. I also played them in the league in between the two European games. I dislike it when that happens. It’s bad enough in real life, when the two teams—usually heavyweights—become so familiar with one another that they cancel one another out and the games become dull technical exercises with few goals and little goalmouth action (Arsenal-Liverpool earlier this season springs to mind).
In the return leg of the WEFA Championship, I won comfortably again, and again by the same scoreline—2-0. Komol only got one goal in this one, a tap-in from a low cross. Schwarz bagged himself the other, a classic centre-forward’s header from a high, looping cross that I sent over by accident. I favour the double-tap low crosses, but neglected to double-tap on this occasion, and there was Schwarz to rise and meet the high ball.
In the league game against Real Madrid, at my ground, I also won 2-0 and managed to regain my #1 league position. That’s three games in a row against the same team that I’ve won by the same scoreline. Strange. I think that this league encounter was the biggest game of my season, and by winning it I may have placed at least one hand on the Treble. There’s no guarantee that I’ll avoid dropping points against other teams for the last 5 games, but I won the six-pointer against Real Madrid. They’ll have to win all their games to keep up with me. The pressure is on both of us equally—or it would be if my rivals weren’t really just a load of calculations spinning around in some microcircuitry, but hey, suspension of disbelief and all that.
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The league is yours, don’t worry. The machine may try to rob a few points from you in the next 5 games, but rest assured Real Madrid will probably lose points in the same way, so as to make it more “exciting”. At least that’s been my experience with this version of the game. I think when you reach a certain point in the development of your team (and it seems it’s where you’re at right now), it’s very hard to lose the league every year. You might lose the occasional final, but the league is quite different.
Adriano - after all this time there’s little that the CPU can do to surprise me, but there are still occasions, few and far between though they be, when it can frustrate or anger me. See tomorrow’s post for an example…