Over the 13.5 seasons that I’ve played through so far on my Master League career on the PSP/PS2 version of PES2008, a couple of teams have rarely (or never) given me much trouble. I’m tempted to include the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid—and even AC Milan—in this bracket. Certainly every time I’ve bumped up against them, most of the time I’ve come away with the win. And an easy win at that.
Granted, once or twice their megastars have launched a traditional PES ’surprise attack’, and pummelled me into submission. But otherwise, I rarely have much trouble. It’s an accepted truism of Master League that the toughest teams to play against are, more often than not, the supposed lesser teams. The alleged minnows.
Now I wouldn’t class Sevilla as being minnows in real life. This may be ludicrously wide of the mark, but I perceive them as being the Newcastle United of Spain: a renowned name fallen on perennially hard times. In PES2008, after playing them twice per season for the past 10 seasons since gaining promotion to Division 1, I’ve rarely had any trouble against them. But oddly, over the past season, all of that has changed.
Suddenly, I find myself struggling to beat them. At times they exhibit Valencia-like resistance and stubbornness.
Every PES player (the Master League players, at any rate) is all-too-familiar with the individual matches where your players seem frozen in ice from the start. Where you can barely string two passes together before the CPU players come steaming in like nimble tanks and take the ball off you. Where all your shots scream high, wide, and not very handsome. Where innocuous challenges (or even no challenges at all) result in free kicks for the CPU, and yellow or red cards for your hapless players.
I’ve started having such games regularly against Sevilla. I have to go back to one of my oldest theories when it comes to Pro Evolution Soccer. I believe that deep within the game there are lines of code that determine how your team will fare against specific other teams over the course of set periods within a Master League career.
Before I started struggling against Sevilla, the team that used to always trip me up was Osasuna—a true minnow of Division 1 who were relegated back at the end of season 2019. I was happy to see them go. My troubles with Sevilla began in 2020…
Yes, what I’m alleging here is that the anti-human mojo bestowed upon Osasuna by the game was transferred to Sevilla after Osasuna were relegated. The patterns of the games are just too similar for it to be anything other than a deep, dark consipracy against me.
I believe that I have cracked PES2008 and that I can play it as well as it is possible for me to play it. My purchase of Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) as a 20-year-old Regen in the mid-season negotiations just gone will, I believe, clinch the Treble for me this season. In the half-dozen games since, I’ve played Ronaldo as often as his form and stamina would allow. I’ve played him in every position up front (in my 4-3-3). At his peak in real life he was a great, great player—few would dispute that; and in PES2008 I have so far found him to be one of the top 5 strikers I’ve had the pleasure of playing with. He scored a couple of vital goals in the 2nd leg of the D1 Cup Quarter-Final (I went through to the Semi).
And I’m still playing great with all my other players. Mustn’t forget them. As my squad list shows I have a roster of galacticos to call upon. Even for me, an average player, it’d be hard not to win almost every game when I can easily field a stunningly talented team all the time.
And then came Sevilla. I was something like 10 points clear at the top of the table. I hadn’t conceded more than about three goals in my last seven league games. I’m playing PES2008 on the PSP full-time lately; there’s just too much else going on on my PS3 for the PS2 version to get a look-in. The game is a touch harder on the handheld console, with its restricted controls and smaller screen. It just feels different, and this translates into a subtly altered kind of gameplay. It’s faster (if that were even possible), and it’s harder to defend. There are more goals. Despite this I was defending pretty well, and scoring tons myself.
Sevilla scored three goals against me in the first half. I pulled one back before half-time to make it 1-3 going into the break. But, still. I was in shock. There was no way that should have happened. Each of their goals was a joke. My players stopping dead, not responding to button-presses. For all that we moan and moan (and moan…) about our players’ delayed responses to button-presses, it’s better to have a delay than to have no response at all. That’s what was happening to my players all over. When PES makes up its electronic mind that it’s going to tilt the balance of a match in its favour, there are no half-measures. It just does it, and you have to like it or lump it.
Like most PES players, I’ve learned to live with it. I try to work around it as much as possible, and just get on with the game. I made up my mind that I would come back in the second half to beat Sevilla 4-3. I set about doing so. I gave it my all, really exerting myself to the utmost. And I brought it back to 3-3 with plenty of time left in the game to get the winner, but it was Sevilla who scored next, making it 3-4 with minutes remaining. After the restart there was no time to mount more than a token foray towards their goal, and it was quickly snuffed out (with suspicious ease).
This one defeat wasn’t a setback. I’m still going to win the title by a good distance. But I always hate these kinds of blatantly scripted matches. Lately it seems that the game doesn’t even try to be subtle about it. I’m always forcibly reminded that all I’m doing is pressing buttons in a computer game. For a few years now it’s been a constant complaint of PES players that there is just too much funny business going on far too often. This has got to change. If scripting is a necessity (and there’s a strong argument that it is), then it has to be more understated, more behind-the-scenes. I find it unforgivable, for example, to have my player’s ability to trap a straightforward pass disabled simply because the CPU wants to get possession back. This and similarly atrocious measures have been visited upon us for far too long, and things have got to change.
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