Needs a good title
Heading now into the final stretch of season 10, my Coventry City are a good bet to win the Division 1 title. I’m still top after 33 matches. The only thing counting against me is a continuing lack of goals. I win most matches 1-0 or 2-1. 3-0 results just don’t happen for me. They’re a once-a-season affair, if that. But if I can go on getting my one or two goals per game whilst shutting out the opposition, I will win this title. That’s a certainty. Ah, but as the old saying goes, there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip…
Last time I spoke about an epic match against Porto that I won 3-2 in the last seconds of stoppage time. The return fixture against them went suspiciously similarly. With a few seconds of stoppage time left I was leading 2-1, and really not under threat, but they forced their equaliser with no time left at all. The match ended 2-2, and it really felt bizarrely like Porto’s deliberate response to my exploits in the first match. Almost as if the AI was delivering a droll meta-commentary on the narrative of the season so far. I know, I need to get out more.
I experienced much better results against the other top teams in the division. Once again I played Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, and Liverpool one after the other, this time winning 3 matches and drawing 1 of them.
My former top striker, Sazi, has seen a remarkable dip in form. He no longer feels like a particularly important player to me. I can leave him out without much regret. Last season he was my main man and to play without him was a minor martyrdom. I have spent £2m on upgrading his player skill cards: first touch, and quick turn. But he’s dropped a couple of OVR rating points (78>76) and become a bit of a spare wheel. Of course, whilst undergoing special training, a player doesn’t take part in ordinary training. That could account for the wobble.
But I think it’s more likely due to my change in formation. Sazi’s dip coincided with my adoption of a new, more tightly-packed 4-3-3. Before, when my formation featured Sazi as an isolated central striker, he was always involved. Now? Now he’s fairly anonymous, and has dropped back in the pecking order behind my other two main strikers, Zaki and Itzhaki. (Incidentally, note the peculiar assonance of my strikers’ names: SAZI, ZAKI, ITZHAKI, SAZI… I really don’t get out much.)
I also paid a cool £1m to give Itzhaki the first touch skill card. This is all money I can only afford to pay if I win the title, I suspect. No pressure. Unlike Sazi, Itzhaki’s grown in importance to the team. He’s grabbed a few important goals that will be seen in my end-of-season goals bonanza. (It’ll feature EVERY goal I have scored this season. That’s every single goal, no matter how humble, no matter how ordinary. All in one video. That’ll be on Friday.)
Looking at that table, and knowing how well I’m playing (if not scoring as many as I’d like), I feel that I will win this title. In a way that might strangely disappoint me. After two ninth-place finishes, to go straight to first-place finish without any intervening stage suggests the passing of a threshold. What if I start to find the game as easy as many other people find it? I don’t want that stage ever to come.
During the current batch of games, I have this one goal to show off before Friday’s video extravaganza. Zaki, my new main man, is the scorer:
Link: 
What I loved about this goal was that I did exactly what I tried to do. As the ball dropped I thought, “Right, I want to just clip this across the keeper high into the opposite side of the net…” And that’s what happened.
When I moved back to Kansas and started supporting the Wizards (Kansas...
not-Greg,
Hopefully you’ll manage to win the league this season. How are your players coping with fatigue? Are you in the D1 Cup this time? Do you think that next season you’ll be able to do as well if you have to play more games (i.e. the CL, PL, and the Cup)?
Also, your Friday video sounds like it’ll be a good one. Can’t wait!
Oh, and by the way, have you seen this? http://www.damnlag.com/articles/PC/359-ea-sports-offering-free-downloadable-football-game-pc-soon.html
I’ve uninstalled PES, and Mass Effect, and all of the games I had as it was eating into my time – I think I must have played about 400+ hours (I didn’t want to look at the total figure) of PES and at least 30+ of Mass Effect (and, when you add to the 20 spent on Borderlands and the 30 on Trackmania, that means I’ve played around 21 whole days worth of games. Sigh.). Oh well, at least your blog gives me my PES fix.
Darshan—I was knocked out of the Cup in the 2nd round, it’s been league action only all the way since very early on.
It means that Friday’s video of every goal I’ve scored all season features the few goals I scored in round 1 of the Cup, and then the rest are all league goals.
It’s an interesting video (if I may say so myself) as it shows all the goals in the order they were scored, match by match. You get to see the patterns (if any) of types of goals. Apart from one or two special goals (like today’s Zaki strike) there are no slow-mo replays or fancy camera angles, just the goals.
I’ve got my eye on Bioshock 2 coming out next week. For about 6 weeks now I’ve also been playing Borderlands (on the 360) for a good few hours every week on both my days off work. I picked up on the buzz around this game on lots of forums, and I have to say the buzz is spot-on. Last night I just reached the 30 hours mark. When the game’s good enough, I’ll find the time, even if there’s none!
My Hunter character’s currently at lvl 29. I just got to Old Haven last night. I like to take my time with the quests and investigate every nook and cranny for loot. I’ve often mentioned a PSP game called Monster Hunter. Borderlands has the same more-ish quality for me, the drive to just push on and see what’s next, what items and weapons etc.
I think Borderlands is the best game I’ve played on next-gen after the first Bioshock. Needless to say, it’s a single-player experience for me.
I’ve never even looked at the online lobby (and never will).
I think I have discovered the difficulty you struggled with for so long! Playing season five now and we are in relegation form. Keep conceding in the 90th minute, same thing the last 3 matches which has left us in the relegation zone.
Looking forward to your goals video.
Well- not anymore. Tried not saving until the end of the session but it froze again. So thats 5 matches down the drain. I think its unplayable now.
Not Given—I don’t know how you put up with the freezing issue. Any luck on the semi-suggestions I made (i.e., laying your PS3 flat if it’s standing up, or vice versa; test it with another game; etc.)? Although the more I hear of it, the more it sounds like a hard drive problem to me.
Re. the game itself, I went through a phase roughly 5 seasons in too (in D2!) of conceding very late, and it drove me mad. Could it be hard-coded? I know, I know. Baseless paranoia…
Nothing would surprise me with PES. Unfortunately that bit of history was wiped out with the freeze. I had come back from 2-0 down to beat spurs of all teams. Bitterly disappointed. I turned it the other way but I have yet to put another game into the PS3 since PES. As for your suggestion of installing it the harddrive, is that even possible on ps3? I found no option to do that, and I don’t think it would help. My new plan had been to only save once at the end of each session, as I assumed the problem crept up after a number of saves- but its not that its either random, or the number of games. Either way its rendered PES unplayable now.
I know its crazy but im buying another xbox core (forget online) and another PES. I was enjoying myself that much..
Division two, welcome me and the rest of those useless defaults back……
Not Given—most games on PS3 have a data installation feature. It’s not exactly the same as a 360 installation, but near enough. It installs several GB from the disc (not the whole disc as the 360 does). The option is within the menus in the games that have it, and PES2010 definitely has it. I believe it’s in one of the Gallery/Edit menus (long time ago now) – have a look for the option ‘data install’ or similar (in-game, of course)*. It reduces the amount of times that the disc has to be accessed. If it’s a disc-read/HD problem kind of thing, that could solve your problem, why not give it a try?
If you do get a 360 and PES2010 for it, it’d be interesting to see if you find the game as difficult as the PS3 version. I’ve noticed that many of those who find the game a bit (or very) easy are on 360 or PC.
*EDIT—the ‘Install’ option is in System Settings in the main PES2010 menu.