Just won it
Season 10 has concluded in the way it seemed destined to from the start: I have won the Division 1 championship. I was very happy. I’m still very happy now. It’s been a long old slog getting to this point—seven hard seasons of graft in the lower division, followed by a tricky adjustment to the top flight. Winning the title now has come along at just the right time. I’m ready to start challenging for more trophies. I’m looking forward to taking my team into the Champions League. This title win—my first trophy in PES2010’s Master League—now opens up a whole new level of competition. I can go for the Treble!
Here’s the final Division 1 table in full:
As seen last time, my position heading into the final few matches was a very healthy one. Really all I had to do was keep doing what I’d been doing all season, and the title would be mine. I could even afford a few slip-ups. As it turned out, the slip-ups never came (not until after I’d won the title anyway—more on that later).
It turned out that the truly decisive games came against Birmingham and then Sunderland. Against Birmingham I went ahead 1-0. And they scored an auto-goal from the kick-off to equalise. I absolutely hate it when this happens in PES2010. It often feels literally impossible to me to stop the AI scoring. When it’s an AI kick-off I already put the ATT/DEF levels on full defence, and also employ the strategy button ‘All-out Defence’ option, but it does no good. Nothing has any effect when the AI really wants to score. I know, I know: I need to defend better and try not to double-sprint-pressure (or clamp) my way out trouble. I’ll crack it one day.
I came back to win the Birmingham game with a very untidy, scrambled goal not long before the end. There were only a few matches left and I was five points clear in first place. A win in my next match against Sunderland, and the title was mine. Sunderland have been a bogey team for me in next-gen PES. I won, though, with a few standard goals from standard attack patterns that felt so very, very good to score.
The run-in was enlivened by the occurrence of two similar long-range goals in the same match, one after the other. They’re at the start of the short clip below. It also shows my team’s title-clinching celebrations after the Sunderland game. Right at the end of the following clip is an AI goal scored against me by my final opponents of the season, the already-relegated and now invincible Bolton Wanderers. They turned up with absolutely nothing to play for, but played like the greatest team ever, and thumped me 4-1. Their fourth goal is the one included at the end. Smiling at my ‘defending’ is allowed…
Link: 
Also notable in the clip is a moment during my team’s locker-room celebrations. My created player, not-Greg, the team captain (of course) clearly decides he’s fed up of the whole scene. He walks away from the celebration without so much as a by-your-leave. It made me laugh out loud at first viewing because it’s eerily close to exactly how I would be in a situation like that in real life. Sure, lads, I’ll jump up and down like a girl with you for a few moments, but then I’m OUT of here…
And so onto season 11. And my first attempt at the Treble.
Finally for this season, I have a compilation of every goal scored by me during the campaign. That’s every single one. I was knocked out of the Cup in the second round. The goals I scored in the first round appear near the start of this video. The rest are all league goals.
As will be seen, I do score plenty of goals that aren’t long-range screamers. PES2010 continues the proud tradition of enabling many routes to goal. Throughout the movie, there are only two occasions when two similar goals follow one another: once, as we have already seen above, with two long-rangers in the same match; and another time when I scored two almost identical side-footed finishes against West Ham. I think this is an intriguing video, and it’s an experiment I will be carrying out again in a few seasons’ time, possibly including every AI goal as well. I hope you enjoy.
Link:
When I moved back to Kansas and started supporting the Wizards (Kansas...
What a brilliant video- more of that music please!
We play completely different styles, the majority of my goals are headers or long ball finishes. You have taken Coventry the more noble route of Arsenal football, except you’ve won something too! Did I see the son of the late great Espimas in your team? How has he fared? I notice your Minanda looked a lot better than his predecessor we get at the start of an ML. Is it fair to say that video shows exactly what PES has over FIFA, the shooting is far more satisfying. Although I am told you can hit powerful long range goals in FIFA, I never saw it.
Look at the decline of Liverpool in your ML too. PES usually goes the route of making the licensed teams damn near unbeatable. (remember the cursed 2008 when Newcastle played like Barcelona?) Liverpool are in free fall in mine too. Do you have any plans to enforce some sort of House Rules in this career eventually? If the league is doable with your team and mine too, imagine it with rated 110 players with every skill in the book. I suspect you’ll need them eventually.
Going to try your installation tip now. Wish me luck, as this is my final attempt at a PS3 ML.
Hey not-Greg,
I am very happy that you have finally won the much coveted D1 title. Congratulations!
Frankly speaking, looking at your blog makes me damn want to ditch my FIFA 10 for a while and go have a Master League adventure of my own! Man…
Nope- that’s it. Went through another long losing spell and it was saving fine.
Dug out a penalties win over Spurs in the cup and it froze. That’s the last match I play unfortunately. Got 100 hours out of the game which isn’t bad considering the PS3 is broken.
Not Given—the classical music is here to stay for future videos. No copyright worries, straight upload to Sevenload, no hassle.
Sorry to hear about the final end of your PS3 adventure. At least you tried everything. And make sure you hang onto the save file—you never know if you’ll end up with a new PS3 at some future point. (Does the PS3 freeze with other games? If it doesn’t, something peculiar to your PES2010 setup will be the culprit and your PS3 is fine, most likely.)
My Regen Espimas is a decent midfielder, currently rated 71 OVR and used whenever fitness or form affects my first-choice player(s). He’s pretty good and the CPU teams keep trying to buy him, however I only get poor offers of £100k or so. I’m holding out for a million. Minanda is virtually identical. They’re both squad-fillers really.
For the future, there’s no need yet to start thinking about House Rules (as Monday’s post will show). I’ve kind of implemented a House Rule anyway by not breaking my back (or the bank) to get top-rated players in. I’ve really stuck with my ‘great mediocrities’, i.e. high 70/low 80 rated players. If/when I get to the stage of a squad full of 90+ players and I’m strolling to 5-0 wins, I’d start selling them.
MLMaestro—thank you, and it’s all the sweeter as this is my first ML trophy since my last trophy in PES2009, over a year ago now. I played for a month or two on PES6(360) at the end of last summer and won nothing at all over about 5-6 seasons.
It looks as if next-gen PES2010 is a bit of an acquired taste. I sympathise with the many great PES fans who’ve tried PES2010, been horrified by some of the (frankly) horrific elements of the gameplay, and gone back to FIFA10 or back to an old PES game. I think that once you get over the presence of those bad elements in the game, it’s just like an old-style PES, really. PES always had these gnarly, annoying aspects. Always. What’s different nowadays is that we expect more in next-gen, and we’ve yet to get it. FIFA has filled that role of ‘amazing new kind of football game for a new era!’ to some extent—the role we all expected PES to fill.
Also I suppose I’m fortunate enough to be a player of low ability who’s found PES2010 (in ML at least) consistently challenging for over 10 full seasons now. If I’d been romping to victories and Trebles after a few seasons of ML my view of this game would be very, very different.
I’m about to find that out. To keep in the groove, ive dug out PES 09. I never did give this game a fair chance, I was in a FIFA zone as well as trying to start on top player. This time its professional until D1 again. I liked it that way.
If it freezes on this ML ill know its the PS3. If not theres some other reason. Looking at the stats I have already played 10s master league 3 times longer than 09s. That shows just how good 2010s ML is.
Not Given—as another 60GB owner (mine’s already had 1 repair) I’m interested in the outcome. Are you going to install the PES2009 data as well? I recommend it. Anything that reduces wear and tear on the drive is a good thing for a console.
Slightly off topic but what classical music would be good for a football video? Canon In D – Pachelbel perhaps? Nessun Dorma? Xerxes: Larghetto – Handel? Or how about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB0wHIC0NS0
Congratulations on the title success, i know its been long time coming, I have yet to scale such heights!! mid table obscurity is all at the mo. That is hilarious about your player showing his emotions, after you recommended creating a version of yourself a while back my in game Lord Stanley has been blossoming well, scoring a few goals and adopting a slight arrogant Cantonaesque?? goal celebration!!, im slightly worried he’ll resign, grow a beard and star in some terrible period dramas!!! I loved the goals, its exactly why i play the game, you have encompassed all the PES passion that makes this game such an addictive franchise, I got the most satisfaction out of your tap ins!! we all love a good pinball moment, although i didnt see any own goals? maybe im mistaken, I lost my forth game on the trot just now, and my Kakuta found his own net twice!!! Its amazing how many goals youve scored from outside the box? I never really try it, its interesting to see everyones obviously developed quite different styles of play, it might be interesting to get a consensus of the different styles and who seems to be most effective, im favouring quick wingers and a Ibrahimovic type striker, but i think i may try a few long drives at goal now, they looked so satisfying!!! anyway well done, roll on the treble!!
BigBalls—the classical music is in primarily due to it being so hard to get a video with copyrighted music in it hosted anywhere on the www lately. That place I found for the Promotion-winning video, tikilive, is one of the few left, and that leaves a lot to be desired. That Philip Glass concerto would never get past the filters on YouTube or sevenload or any of the many others (hulu, dailymotion, etc.) that I tried.
Lord Stanley—thank you, and as you say, it’s now all about the Treble, although I’d settle for steady progress. League+Cup now, and maybe the Treble next season or the season after. I’m going for the Treble now, don’t get me wrong, but in a way I’d be disappointed if I got it immediately.
I don’t remember scoring any own-goals in season 10, but there are at least two own-goals from the AI in there.