Pack up your Trebles
Posted by: not-Greg in European Cup (ECC), God mode, Treble, Valencia, league table, tags: European Cup (ECC), God mode, league table, Treble, ValenciaOuch—the Treble this year has gone. I’m out of the European Cup.
I’m very disappointed. I’ve still got the Division 1 Cup and the League to go for, but it feels as if the season is over. The Treble is my major target and I’ve yet to win a proper one in PES2008. Although I did win it last season, it was a decidedly suspect win that I don’t really count as a proper Treble. With a few games to go in season 2016 I was about a million points behind Valencia. They conveniently managed to drop just enough points to let me win the league on goal difference in the last week, thus completing the Treble. Hmmm, I thought at the time.
And it was Valencia who were involved again this season. This time they had a deciding hand in denying me the Treble. So I suppose what’s gone around has finally come around.
They’d already beaten me 1-2 at home in the first leg of our European Cup quarter-final. Those two away goals were massive for them. In the return leg, I knew I had to score at least two away goals of my own regardless of anything they managed to do.
I’ve mentioned a few times before just how formidable Valencia are in my Master League. They seem to be as good as Real Madrid and Barcelona put together and then doubled. Valencia are fast, strong, skilful, and lucky when they really need to be (the finale of season 2016 excepted, of course). There’s rarely any need for the game to handicap me when I play Valencia. It seems their players are good enough on their own not to need me to be handicapped—the way all games should be.
I took the lead in the away leg. It was early in the first half. Another goal would win me the tie. But taking an early lead was the worst thing I could have done. One of the PES series’ long-standing niggling faults is that computer teams playing cup ties don’t properly recognise and react to the whole two-legged setup. If they win the first leg by a couple of goals, for example, and you take the lead in the second leg—but you’re still behind on aggregate—they’ll react just as if they’re 1-0 down, without any regard for the aggregate scoreline. In real terms this often means you face a supercharged, God-moded CPU that never lets up until it has ‘equalised’. I’m no programmer, but I don’t think it’d take more than a few lines of programming code to fix this irritating problem.
Valencia went completely medieval on my ass. They scored two goals by half time to make it 2-1 to them on the day, meaning I now needed to score two more goals without reply to win. And there could be no extra time. It was a tall order. I groaned out loud, attracting some funny looks from the lunchtime crowd in the restaurant at my workplace.
I never got my goals. I conceded another one instead, late on in the second half. It was one of those miserable games that miserably ends your pursuit of the Treble. Other Treblers (is that what we’re called?) will know the exact sinking feeling that I had as the final whistle drew near and even the faint mad hope of some wild miracle started to recede. It ended 3-1 to Valencia on the day, 5-2 on aggregate. I’d crashed out of Europe with a whimper.
In the Division 1 Cup I sailed through to the semi-final without any difficulties. But it feels pretty hollow now. I really do set my heart on a Treble every season. In the league, things are also going moderately well. Sitting five points behind Valencia (grrr) in the table, I met them in a bruising six-pointer that ended, predictably, in a stalemate 0-0 draw. A few games later they’d dropped points against other teams and I was just 3 points behind them. But then I had a torrid game against Real Madrid. Usually this is a guaranteed win for me, but I think Real have been reading the blog. They’ve taken offence, or something. They were unusually spirited and resilient. I struggled to get a 1-1 out of them. Valencia won their game, and so they take a 5 point lead again.
Entries (RSS)
Sorry to hear about the European Cup mishap. Maybe next season. At least you can still get a double. Next time make sure you go out in the group stage, so you can at least enter the “other” Cup.
I’d almost prefer to go out in the group stage and have a rare go at winning the Masters Cup. At least I can still try for the Double, yes, but Valencia are in my way in both competitions. You should see the monster they have become. I often get this in ML after 10+ seasons. One AI team dominates over all the others.
Sometimes the opposite happens, a very strong team makes the wrong signing decisions, and becomes crap. It happened to Inter Milan in a recent ML I played. I was delighted, as they had been giving me a lot of grievance.
The transfer market is something that REALLY needs sorting out for the next version. When your team reaches the top popularity level, for example, NOBODY makes any offers for your players anymore. You can put all your squad up for negotiation, and not a bid will come in.
Not to mention the very improbable signings from bottom feeders, like Inzaghi playing for Zaragoza, as in your ML.