Okay, it’s the pre-season negotiations and once again I don’t need any new players, but I want some. That’s just the way it is in PES Master League. It’s a twice-a-season habit. I also want to get rid of one or two players who are not living up to expectations. As they say on the Internet: Park Jyun-Hi, I am looking at you.

I’ve got silly money. Really silly money. Winning lots of games and spending no money: it’s a mathematical certainty.

I can buy anyone I want and not have to worry about the cost—within reason. Salaries in PES2008 are pretty ludicrous. I forgot to mention at this stage last season that Schwarz’s salary is around the 2200 mark. That’s just hideous. It’s a thousand more than my next-most-well-paid player. It’s fortunate this is only a computer game, otherwise my entire squad would be beating down my door asking for a pay rise.

Actually, I never offered Schwarz that much money—a bug in the system gave it to him. I’m on record as saying I dislike paying silly wages. There’s a weird bug in the transfer market this year where the amounts offered will show up as 1 point each (fee and salary). In Schwarz’s case, I offered him around 1300 points as salary, and he accepted, but when I checked the squad info screen after the transfer was complete, his salary was posted at the 2200 mark. I wasn’t happy but I had no choice. I had to accept it. It was a fait accompli. Thankfully Schwarz has been worth it, and thankfully I haven’t had any salary bill problems, but still, this transfer market bug (and it is a bug) is the kind of thing that could cause a Game Over under other circumstances. It wasn’t just the next-gen version that was rushed out unfinished…

——————-

I visited the Openness to Negotiation list on a whim, and saw a Regenned 18-year-old Andy Cole sitting there just waiting to be picked up. I offered his club a player-plus-cash deal: Park Jyun-Hi and a token 1000 points as a sweetener. For the third time on all PES2008s this year, I now have Andy Cole in my squad.

For some reason the PES2008 powers-that-be love Andy Cole. He could only be considered an above-average striker in real life (IMO), but in PES2008—wow. He’s smokin‘, as I believe the kids say.

I also picked up Shubin, a talented Ukrainian AMF whom I’ve had on my shortlist since the start. Finally my team ranking is good enough to let me get him. He wouldn’t listen to any kinds of offers before.

I made a couple of rather forlorn, almost token bids for Rooney and Torres, who are both at Barcelona in my parallel PES world. Both of them are around the age of 30 and could have a great couple of seasons left in them yet. Alas, neither Barca nor the players were interested. Even the silliest offers—30000 transfer, 4000 salary, that kind of thing—were refused. I sort of knew I wouldn’t get them anyway. Looks like I’ll have to wait until they retire and regenerate.

Neither of my new signings are good enough to go into the First XI. Among my squad, I think Giggs and Larsson and Kim Cyun Hi could swap places with my entire forward line and do just as well, or better. There are lots of players like that in my squad—players who haven’t yet had a proper chance. Season 2015 is going to be a long one, I feel. Every single player will have to perform at some stage.

Singers FC 3-0 Napoli 0

I wrote the word ‘bootiful’ under this result in my notebook. For those not in the know, ‘bootiful’ is a rustic mispronunciation of the word ‘beautiful’, as popularised by the Norfolk farmer and businessman Bernard Matthews in a series of television advertisements over the past 20 or more years. In recent times bootiful has come to be used informally and/or ironically, when the speaker wants to be playful. I really don’t get out much.

Blackburn 1-2 Singers FC

Always a pleasure to beat one of the trickiest teams in the game.

Singers FC 1-2 Celtic

I’ve mentioned before that I find Celtic either ridiculously easy to beat or impossibly hard to beat in next-gen PES2008, with no middle ground. This was the hard Celtic, with Vennegoor of Hesselink (surely the greatest-ever name of anyone, ever) playing like a rampant beast throughout. He scored both Celtic goals, with me getting a late consolation.

Feyenoord 0-3 Singers FC

A return to form with a thrashing of Division 2’s current whipping boys.

Three wins out of four—and a stack of goals scored—have lifted me up to 2nd in the table and put some clear blue water between me and the chasing pack. After 30 games I’ve almost secured promotion—although my focus must not waver. The Division 2 Championship will look after itself.

Somewhere in amongst all these games, Andy Cole scored his first goal for my team. A very nice goal it was too, with some careful build-up play:

He’s still only 17 and has several seasons to go before he’s the finished article. Having said that, in my last ML career I only had him until the age of 19 and he was one of my best strikers even then. If he gets too good in this career I’ll have to change my House Rules and get rid of him. The same goes for any player, including the likes of Camacho and Mathieu. I’m getting very worried by Melengue, my left winger. He shows worrying signs of being a bit of a wonder-dribbler. He might have to be disposed of first of all. But I’ll cross these bridges if and when I get to them.

Singers FC are top of Division 2 at the halfway stage of the season. Here in this mid-season negotiation period I don’t need to get a load of new players. But I want to get some new players. It is very strange…

Is there a PES Master League player who is not conditioned to buy as many great players as he can in every negotiation period? It’s just the way you get after the difficult first season(s). Often it’s best to restrain yourself and simply make do with what you’ve got.

There are a couple of drawbacks to bringing in new players in PES Master League. The game models Teamwork, which is based on how effectively your individual players play together. New players will not fit in well to your team for a couple of games, or sometimes even longer. Passes will go astray and shots will go wide. (So how does that differ from normal? I hear somebody ask, waggishly.)

My squad has shown me that it’s more than capable of getting me what I want from this season—promotion—and perhaps even the Division 2 title as well. I don’t need to bring anyone else in.

Still, a few more players won’t hurt. But only a few. And they’ve got to be the right players. Players I need. Players who can fill a specific role in my squad.

I’ve had Morfeo in my squad ever since the first mid-season negotiations. He’s been good for me—he was great in his first season or so—but it’s time to move him on. He’s 36 and decidedly average now. He always was average, of course, it’s just that now he’s among much better players and it really shows.

I traded Morfeo for a player called Rasnic (AMF/SMF, both sides, 26 years old).

I won’t say too much now but Rasnic looks as if he could be a star.

He lacks pace, and he lacks any real special ability traits (such as Middle Shooting) that could make up for the lack of speed, but his other stats are all on the high side. Maybe he’ll be one of those players like Marcos from my last career who just comes from nowhere and turns out to be great and you have no idea why.

I also had a look through the Youth list to see who had popped up. Somebody worthwhile always pops up in the mid-season. That’s when the players who have retired at the end of the previous season reappear as 17-year-old Regens.

This time, I saw Stam and couldn’t resist him. (And isn’t that a great likeness of Stam, pictured right? The man looks like a Bond villain, no question.)

I also picked up Andy Cole—a player I had in my last ML career, and one of the few I’m allowed to have again this time around.

And that was it. Just three players coming in, with one going out as ballast in the deal for Rasnic. But I’m still left with 27 players in the squad. One of my key House Rules in this Master League career is that my squad can be no larger than 25 players. I had to decide on two players to release. (I did put some players up for sale, but that was a forlorn hope…)

One of the players released could be a Default player. Another key House Rule is that I must keep at least 5 of the original Default squad players at all times. I had 6 left: Valeny, Macco, El Moubarki, Libermann, Gutierrez, and Ordaz. One of them could go: I decided it was Valeny. The others have all got things going for them that Valeny hasn’t.

Which left me needing to ditch one other player from the remainder of my squad. It was tough, but I settled on Cassano. He’s been average for me out there on the right, and now that I’ve got Andy Cole I’ll be developing him from the start. I have other strikers who can play when Cole doesn’t. I don’t need Cassano. So it was bye-bye…

…and the game tried to scare me about it. What does it mean, Cassano will be sorely missed? I think that the game is telling me that jettisoning Cassano could cause my team popularity to fall, but that thing’s just window dressing. The team/player popularity mechanic is so half-heartedly modelled in PES2008 that it might as well not be there at all. The only times I have ever sensed it having any effect on the game was during my first ML career when I couldn’t persuade any clubs or players to negotiate with me in the transfer market. Otherwise, nothing. Nada, zip.

———————–

Andy Cole slots into Cassano’s vacant right-sided CF position. Rasnic and Stam can stay on the bench for now. There are 18 games to go. I’m sure they’ll both see plenty of meaningful action before this important season is finished.