The first game after the mid-season negotiations always makes for a refreshing change.

You’ve staggered toward the mid-season, and in some cases fallen over the line. Half your team played the last few games with three-quarters-full stamina bars, and the other half sat on the bench recovering from their one-quarter-full stamina bars.

Once the four-week negotiations are up, every player is once again at your disposal, fully fit and raring to go with their gleaming 100% stamina bars. Any new players are also there, just itching to be put through their paces. Yes, the first game after a negotiation period is always a bit special.

Sunderland were the opponents. Sunderland were my bogey team in my last ML career. That’s one reason but not the only reason they’re in this ML career. I wanted to sprinkle Division 2 of this Superleague with a few token weaker teams.

My entire First XI was fit and in form. I kicked off, and immediately worked the ball out to Leonardo (pictured left). Straightaway, I could tell that, no, he’s definitely not the famous Leonardo… (Not unless somebody at Konami has made a serious blunder, anyway.)

I took him on a little run up the wing to see if he is a wonder-dribbler or not. He’s not. He still seems pretty handy, though. I kept him on the field for the whole game and he was always a threat.

Sadly, I conceded a goal to Sunderland after about 5 minutes. I had virtually my whole team in Sunderland’s half, looking for an early goal myself, but conceded possession with a sloppy, over-ambitious pass. Sunderland broke. Maldini isn’t fast enough yet to cover the holes that their strikers exploited. They one-twoed their way around him, and I rushed the goalkeeper out but couldn’t stop the goal. 1-0 down. Damn.

I got my equaliser pretty quickly. It must have been only a few minutes later when I passed with Maldini to Matuzalem, who sent an aerial through-ball down the right wing towards Kmolo. As the ball bounced I tried for a flashy first-time half-volley from 25 yards (they look and feel just great when they go in). The Sunderland keeper saved - but, as ever in PES2008, he couldn’t hold onto the ball. Altintop followed up for a simple tap-in. Here’s the whole goal:

I was happy enough with it. The rest of the game panned out pretty much like your average football bore-draw. Both teams occasionally looked like scoring but there was always the last-man tackle, the saving challenge, the acrobatic goalkeeper to claw the shot away…

Sunderland aren’t my bogey team anymore. I haven’t identified my bogey team yet this time around - perhaps I haven’t got one. Perhaps it was only my paranoid PES imagination that made me think Sunderland were ever my bogey team.

After starting season 2011 very well I was almost scared to start playing again. My usual schtick in PES2008 is to take one step forward and three steps back. Followed by another step or two back, before taking a step forward again. Followed by… you get the idea.

The next match was a pretty dour struggle against Portsmouth. 0-0 it ended, without much incident. The ball seemed to be stuck in the midfield for most of the game. I’d win possession (I’m good at winning possession now), then try to move forward but find that none of my usual moves were getting through. Was this the start of another of my fabled PES2008 Master League backstepping manoeuvres?

No. It wasn’t. I was up against Liverpool in the next game. They never seem to do well against me nowadays. In last season’s Cup Final I thoroughly battered them.

I bossed the game, taking an early lead - and then predictably lost a goal to some suspicious nonsense. 1-1, and I had a certain sinking feeling..

In the middle of the second half I was pressing hard for another goal. Then I got it. Shimizu in his new right-sided CF role has been fantastic for me this season. (He was rubbish when I played him there in seasons 2007 and 2008, but he was only about 6 years old at the time.) This was a classic PES finish:

There’s nothing like rifling one in from an angle across the keeper. These kinds of goals are true bread and butter strikes.

I bagged another goal before the end and ran out a 3-1 winner. It wasn’t very tough.

Sunderland were next. Sunderland: the team that has handed out so many painful beatings to me over the seasons that I’ve lost count of just how much I owe them.

I have a suspicion that the game automatically earmarks certain other club(s) at the start of a Master League as being your bogey team(s). Every game I play against either Galatasaray or Sunderland (my two bogey teams) seems characterised by intensity. That’s the only way I can describe it. The tackles are unflinching; the pace, electric.

This was another relatively dull game in the Portsmouth pattern. The fireworks of the Liverpool game were largely absent. I got a goal with Schwarz early in the second half. Immediately afterward, the Sunderland players turned on their customary Brazilian skills (!) and tried to dance past my defence, but I held firm. I was lucky on one or two occasions. The final whistle blew. Happy? Yes. Yes, I was happy.

Next up was Zagreb away. Things did not get off to a good start. Watch my goalkeeper, Friedel, in this clip:

Thanks for that, Brad. You and Kim U Don’t aren’t sharing a room on away trips ever again.

Okay, so my passing between defenders that gave the ball away was poor - but I had seen out of the corner of my eye this strange black-clad figure running up the pitch, and it distracted me. I wonder how far Friedel would have kept going if I hadn’t lost possession?

If I was now going to give Brad Friedel a permanent nickname along the lines of Kim U Don’t, there’s an obvious one: Bad Friedel. But I went on to win the game 4-1, so I’ll forgive him.

These results - three wins and a draw, with goals aplenty - have pushed me up to third in the table after nine games. Nosebleed territory.

If this is indicative of the season to come, I should be in with a chance at Europe.

I’m still not convinced, though. I still fully expect to find myself dragged back down into the relegation quagmire sooner or later.