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Posted by: not-Greg in Bradley, European Cup (ECC), league table, penalty shootout, psp, tags: Bradley, European Cup (ECC), league table, penalties, pspIt’s not all doom and gloom. After the disaster of being eliminated from the Division 1 Cup by Barcelona and losing my grip on the Treble, and then compounding this disaster by losing my first league game of the season to end my unbeaten run—the only saving grace of which was that Real Madrid, my closest league challengers, also lost their corresponding game—[deep intake of breath] it was time to shake off the disappointment and get back to business.
I still have a European Title and a League Title to win. So far it’s been a trophyless Master League career (the Division 2 title doesn’t really count). I’ve got to change that within the next few games.
The Treble isn’t the be-all and end-all of Master League. It’s just something to aim for, a kind of pilot star. To me Master League is all about the stories and experiences that are generated through the season-by-season playing of games, the steady build-up of a great squad, and the development of young players.
Just before the European Cup final I played a couple of league fixtures and won them both easily. Yes, concentration and focus are both back in town. I’d wobbled after the Barca game and allowed Osasuna to beat me while I was still replaying the Cup game in my head. I wasn’t playing in the here-and-now.
I put a stop to that and knuckled down to maintain my lead at the top of the table. Now, with just two league games left in season 2015, I’m 4 points clear of Real Madrid in second place. This title is mine to lose. My last two games are against Villarreal and Real Mallorca. One more win guarantees me the Championship, regardless of whatever Madrid do. I think I’m a certainty to beat one of those teams. Hopefully these won’t be infamous last words…
Before settling the league, there was the small matter of the European Championships, aka the Champions League. So far this competition has been all plain sailing. I whizzed through the group stage virtually unopposed. I hardly broke a sweat in dismissing my knockout opponents. And so to the Final.
It was against Valencia. I was in a state of high alert, guarding against any sign of complacency and loss of focus. Valencia, as I have written before, have consistently been the toughest team for me to beat domestically—far more so than Barcelona and Real Madrid. Valencia pipped me to the league title in season 2014 and have been a nusiance this season as well. Playing them in the European Cup final was not a happy prospect.
And it was a tight game, tighter than the proverbial nun’s crotch. (Poor old proverbial nun…) Heading past the 80th minute I was convinced it was going to extra time, and possibly to penalties. I hoped not. I hate extra time in PES. I only ever play ten-minute matches and if the CPU scores then there’s never really enough time to come back. Also, I loathe penalties in PES—always have done. More than any other aspect of the game, I feel completely helpless. There’s no rhyme or reason why some players will blast their kicks over the bar, or have them saved. There’s no skill involved. It really is five coin-tosses in a row, with the whole match awarded to whoever wins the most coin-tosses. At least FIFA tries to incorporate a skill element to their penalties. Hopefully this is something Konami and Seabass (curse every last one of them, and the horses they rode in on: damn them, damn them all to hell) are working on and will resolve for PES2009 and beyond.
But this match didn’t go to extra time or penalties. I had a throw-in on the right and threw it to Bradley. I ran him a little way across the pitch and, about 25 yards out, from a pretty acute angle that he’s never scored from before, I let a shot fly… It went in. 1-0 to me, and all I had to do was hold off Valencia for a few more game minutes. My very first PES2008 trophy was imminent!
I survived those last few minutes, and impatiently pressed START to get to the presentation ceremony and celebrations. I was playing this session on the PSP. I held the little screen very close to me, wanting to savour every moment. As I watched the blank LOADING screen I felt very excited. About thirty seconds passed. It was taking its time, this celebration cutscene, but that was the PSP for you—why didn’t Sony go with solid state cartridges, just this once? Another thirty seconds passed. Hmmm. I was getting worried. The UMD wasn’t making any noise. If it was still loading, as the screen claimed it was, surely it’d be grinding away back there? It was totally silent.
I’ll cut to the chase: I had to reset my PSP and then play the European Cup final against Valencia all over again. It was annoying, but at least if I lost I’d be fully entitled to reload and play it again. As it turned out I won the final again on my first attempt. The game was spookily similar to the first one, except this time the score was 1-1 at 80 minutes, and then I got my winner. Bradley scored it again, fittingly.
And that was that. I’ve won the European Championship. Now for the league.
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Congratulations! Champions League is yours!
Good luck with those two matches. You could draw the two games and still win the title, assuming you have a greater goal difference. Just dont let complacency creep in, and you can win the League.
Grats, thats the one problem with any sort of console, they occationally throw a wobbly at the wrong moment!
Now go thrash one of your last two games and the title is yours, GL
I have a sneaky feeling you will win due to other results though, just to make it a bit more dramatic.
heyendo30 - thanks, and yes I could draw both games and still win the league. My GD is superior by a large enough margin. We’ll see what happens…
Paww - I love my PSP, not just because of the greatness that is PES2008, but for so many other games too. (I’m neck-deep in a game called Monster Hunter Freedom 2 atm. The depth in that game is staggering. Some players claim to have racked up 500+ hours on it, and having managed a relatively puny 30 hours myself but still only completed about 10% of everything there is to complete, I can say that they’re probably not lying.) So I can forgive it this one foul-up on the loading, especially as my sturdy old PSP is a launch-day model (i.e. nearly 3 years old now).
Never owned a PSP so don’t know what they’re like and everyone I know who had bought one has sold it, obviously disaspointed by it.
My last handheld was a Gameboy Colour, that use to lock up after you’d forgot to save it for half hour, always annoying!
It’s mainly about the games, of course, and - with a handheld - the time and inclination to play it. I know a few people with PSPs and they hardly ever use them.
It’s a shame as there are some genuine must-have games on the PSP in my opinion. Syphon Filter, Metal Gear, PES (of course), Monster Hunter, Patapon, Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics (the FFVII-derived Chrono Trigger is out next month), and many many more. Sony, if you’re reading this, hire me.
Congratulations on the cup win. Now go and grab yourself the double.
I have spent the afternoon revisiting PES tiltles, my favourite being PES4. Played 4 games in ML, I like that the players are chunky, like the old days on ISS. Your defenders don’t go wandering, when you play a pass it sticks like glue to players feet (granted I am Barca in the ML) lofted through balls are more accurate, scoring opportunities are harder to come by, although I did scored 2 long range screamers with the left foot of Motta. P4 W2 D2 F4 A2. A classic game, think I will compete in a ML on this version with the defaults.
I never played PES4 properly, I got in to it by borrowing the game off a friend of mine but then after a week or so of playing it I found out PES5 had come out so promptly went and bought it and never looked back!
PES4 was a fine vintage, a little on the easy side for my liking but still one of the game’s great versions.
If I had to choose one version from all PESes to represent the essence of the series, it’d be tough but I’d go for PES3. That was the last version where I never noticed any scripting. There probably was scripting, but it was so subtle that I never noticed it. Also Stoichkov in PES3 was the best left-footed striker I’ve ever played with on PES.