In praise of Montserrat Caballe
Barcelona—it was the first time that we met. Barcelona—how can I forget? The moment that you stepped into the room you—
That’s quite enough of that. Within a few weeks, Barcelona have been my opponents five times: once in the league, twice in the Division 1 Cup, and twice in the European Championships.
I’m finding that Barcelona are a strange package in this Master League career. I rarely have trouble beating them and they never seem to do anything special in the league. At the end of each season they’re usually hanging around in the top 6, but nowhere near challenging for the title. And I think it might all be my fault.
When I set up this league I omitted the English clubs. This sent all the English clubs’ players onto the open market, from where the existing clubs—spread across all four leagues—snapped them up. The end result is that in many cases the English club players seem to have diluted the strength of some clubs, Barcelona being one of them. Jamie Carragher is currently at Barcelona in my Master League. Now, I think Jamie Carragher in real life is a fine player, but in PES he could only really be considered an above-average player. Although Real Madrid, for one, seem to have been peculiarly boosted by their acquisition of the likes of Mark Noble (yes, Mark Noble).
I don’t know. Maybe Barcelona being mediocre isn’t all my fault. They sure are easy to beat, though. Most of the time. I beat them in the League. I absolutely thumped them in the Division 1 Cup. Leathered them. Hammered them into oblivion—as per the screenshot. (That’s a 9-3 scoreline to me, if it’s a bit too blurry.)
In the first of our two European group games, things weren’t much different—it was an easy 3-0 to me. In the second tie, though… I had a nightmare, and went down 0-1 early on. Then I started hacking away at the opposition as I like to do sometimes. Cutting to the chase, I was down to eight men by the second half. I was 0-1 behind and three players down against Barcelona. Even an average Barcelona should romp home to victory now. Things were not looking good.
But, while it was still only 0-1 to Barca, there was always a chance… I came to my senses. I rejigged my formation into an emergency 3-3-1, as seen in the diagram. I went with three CBs and pulled my DMF all the way back—as far back as he would go on the formation screen—to sit just in front of them. I pulled my two AMFs all the way back as well, to sit just behind the halfway line. I had a lone CF—Kim Cyun Hi—who was also sitting as deep as possible.
I brought on Komol to play as the left-sided AMF, despite it not being one of his positions. I’ve played with Komol for almost ten seasons now and I know I can rely on him to get me out of a tight spot. Immediately I took him off on a swashbuckling run across the pitch that led to a shot that hit the post… And Kim Cyun Hi was on hand to knock in the rebound.
1-1, and I was prepared to settle for that. I set my ATT/DEF level to full defence and prepared to see out the remaining ten minutes. I anticipated it being difficult. My plan was to defend doggedly and try to hold up the ball in midfield whenever I got possession. I would just run down the clock if I could.
However. Camacho—dear old Camacho (he’s 27 now!)—had the ball in the wide AMF position. The entire Barcelona team seemed to be swarming around my few attackers. The replay shows how many they were and how few I was. I felt in my water that Barca would win the ball back from me in a moment if I tried to keep passing it around. In PES, you end up just knowing when the CPU has decided to get the ball back. So I took a shot with Camacho, a speculative shot:
Yessssss……. 2-1 to me it ended. I’d scored twice in the second half whilst 0-1 down and having had three players sent off. Despite the sheer unrealism of it all, I was delirious. This is the kind of thing that I play PES for. I’d hate it if it happened too often, of course. But once in a while? It’s the feeling I get from occasions like those that keeps me playing PES.
What a win! Does Rooney still play for Barca in your league?
I see your point about professional mode in FIFA, I won’t lower it yet though. I am just getting used to playing more carefully now. Something I didn’t realise is that LT is the equivalent of PES RT (or R2 for Sony people like myself), this allows me to walk slowly and keep the ball shielded. If I had known that for the Scotland game..
Well I probably still would have been thrashed. They were unstoppable.
It’s a shame you don ‘t have the English clubs in your ML. I don’t think I could have continued like that, mainly because I like looking across the other leagues and seeing how other teams are doing. Would be interesting to see how many times Manchester United or Chelsea won the league. Also watching Newcastle consistently challenging for the title is a little weird!
Rooney does still play for Barca but he’s in decline. A few seasons ago he was a lot of trouble but I can handle him now. I can’t wait for him (And Torres and Henry et al) to retire and Regen. I want them all in my team.
Semi-Pro really is a great training level in the FIFA/UEFA series. You get the best of both worlds – it’s easy enough to let you play, and hard enough that you’ll get beaten if you don’t concentrate. You can’t take it lightly. I spent about 3 weeks on Semi Pro – a whole season in Manager Mode, where I still only finished 6th in the Championship! – before being brave enough to move up to Professional – which felt weird because, as you know, it’s ‘only’ the middle of 5 difficulty levels, and I was so used to PES that I felt weak for not moving onto Legendary after a day!
(Incidentally, if Professional is making you angry, you don’t want to play on Legendary. Believe me, just winning the ball is a major event on Legendary. And then you’ve got the real pressure of not losing it again.)
The LB button on the 360 controller is the trigger run button. Tapping it will cause the nearest of your players to the ball-carrier to go on a run. Very useful, and it’s how I made Babel make that run for the volley goal I posted a few days ago (the player you trigger will keep running).
Also, don’t neglect your right stick! In conjunction with the LT it’s your ‘trick stick’, but I never use it for tricks (I’m no good at them). On its own the right stick is the first touch stick. Flicking it just before receiving the ball moves your player, with the ball, in that direction. The right stick has all kinds of uses. Happy hunting!
p.s. I did play some FIFA08 last night. I had a terrible session, winning just 1 game out of 5. (This was on Professional.) I checked the available half lengths and it’s just the same as UEFA: maximum 20 minutes.
Thanks for the tips! Didn’t know about sending them on a run so I’ll try and use that next match. This game is so hard! I am having another go at the Euro Championship Group Stages. The first game against Russia was terrible, all they do is drive the team bus in front of the goal and stay there, it finished 0-0 depite me going all attack.
Then comes Sweden who play like the mighty Scotland in the first half. I am lucky to get in at 0-0. I changed to 3-5-2 at half time, and went defensive to hit them on the counter. It worked! I played much better (I didn’t get a shot on goal in the first half) and near the end it was anyones game. It finished 0-0 though.
So the group now sits with the mighty Greece with 6 points, Spain with 2, the rest on 1. I will need a win to guarntee it, a draw might be enough. Luckily the scores are shown as it happens so this will be a nervy match. Lets see if Spain can actually make the knock out stages..
Anyway sorry for using YOUR weblog to post updates on my game! All FIFA talk from me is BANNED!
Don’t worry about it – this is a general football game blog as well as a PES one. I’ve written loads about FIFA in the past and will do so again. This year, the liking that many PES fans have for the new FIFA is one of the big stories about PES, weirdly. I trust that Konami and Seabass are aware of the phenomenon and lavishing all the care and attention on PES2009 that next-gen PES2008 was sorely lacking…
I’m just as enthusiastic about the potential of the all-new FIFA gameplay as I ever was. Admittedly I’m one of those for whom it’s not quite there yet, but it’s still bloody unprecedented (and very welcome) that a FIFA game should even see the inside of my console, never mind be regarded as playable, and good, and still be played 6 months later!
Carry on updating me about your progress in UEFA2008. I’m sorely tempted to just go out and get it (I’ve got some games I could trade in to bump the price down) but I’m resisting.
If you haven’t already found it, the official EA UEFA2008 forum is here. Among all the tips and tricks there’s lots of threads and posts from PES fans ‘confessing’ to dabbling with the dark side this year. EA must be cock-a-hoop (Seabass, you’d better be aware!).
Well for someone who plays football games as much as you seem too, it wouldn’t be the biggest waste of money..
Greece beat me 3-0 and I was out. I switched it on to semi-pro and it is just not hard enough. I beat France 9-2, and I could have scored every attack if I had wanted too. It’s gotta be on professional, however hard some games are gonna be. Once I can consistently beat tournaments on professional I will see about stepping it up.
Sounds like your day on Pro has stood you in good stead. I find Semi-Pro way too easy now as well.
It’s because I play football games such a lot that ‘m reluctant to get another one. I already have PES2008 on the go. FIFA08 is coming back I think. I’ve still got to get Dagenham & Redbridge to the Premier League, AND I’ve never mastered the game on any level above Professional, which still causes me problems anyway…
True enough.
I think I just had the most realistic match I have ever had on a game! It was 40 minutes long and on Legend! Just thought I would give it a try. I was Spain against Italy.
They ended up winning 3-0 but it was only 1-0 upto the 75th minute. When I started sending people up they hit me on the break. Twice. Gotta say the sending players on runs works a treat! Not only does it create the over the top through ball but makes defenders follow them, and clears a path! I hope I can do a lot better on professional as of now. At least it felt real on Legend- Italy did not play god-like football, they just took a few chances on a very even game. I even had 2 one on ones with their keeper that I should have scored. Excellent stuff.
Coincidentally, Mark Noble is in Real Madrid in my ML too, and he’s nearly unstoppable.
He must be coded to be bought by them and play amazingly well?? I wonder why..
It just seems that sometimes good teams are randomly weaker, perhaps to throw in the dodgy results you get in football.
I beat Chelsea with Plymouth Argle a while back, it wasn’t a thrashing (0-2) I belive but if you had any idea of how bad a team they are in PES it would be unbelievable. They’re the worst of the championship teams in my game by a long way too. Worse team in the entire game too.
I don’t understand the goal by the way, you had two players closing in on you and the first backed off completely and the second gave you loads of space to get a shot in.
Still it was a very nice goal though
Adriano – if you ever play the PS3/360 version (in particular the Euro version – I know, this what-if is getting more and more unlikely by the word), there’s a player called Daryl Murphy who is probably the greatest player I have ever seen in a CPU team on any computer football game. I’ve noticed that Mark ’son of Pele’ Noble is pretty handy for Real in my ML.
Paww – you forgot to mention how useless the goalkeeper is on that shot as well! It’s one of those where I think the power of the shot is supposed to have beat him, but it still looks terrible. Overall, speaking as someone who frequently plays with 10 men or less (!), PES is definitely scripted to make it possible for you to play well and win with a couple of players sent off. Back in the days of ISS on the PS1 I used to be expert at getting results – coming from 3-0 down – when down to 10 or less players. It’s got a lot harder to do in PES but it’s still a lot more doable that perhaps it should be.