I claimed my first win of season 2012 against a team called Heracles Almero. I’m playing in the PES2008 equivalent of La Liga, so I thought I’d have heard of most or all of the teams—but I’d never heard of Heracles Almero.

A quick Google of the name indicates that I’ve never heard of them because they’re really a quite obscure Dutch team. Their real name also seems to be Heracles Almelo. Hmmm all round, really.

The game looked like it was going to be yet another 0-0. After four of the blighters on the bounce I wasn’t too happy. When would I score another goal? When? There is something almost tragic about a 0-0 in football. Nil-nil just isn’t the point of what any game should be about, if that makes sense. I think the Americans had the right idea in the 1970s when they effectively banned 0-0 results from their ill-fated ’soccer’ league at the time.

Bradley was sitting out this game on the bench due to tiredness. I brought him on in the 79th minute. I had a throw-in deep in my own half, and worked the ball across the pitch to him. I ran him a little way forward, crossed the halfway line, shot speculatively… and the ball flew into the net through the CPU keeper.

Not literally through the keeper: on closer inspection the ball passed between his outstretched hands. He should have still saved it, but I was happy enough. Bradley’s sheer power had scored the winning goal. It was his first goal for my Coventry City with his first touch of the game. I’ve had plenty of players in PES with the Middle Shooting ability, but Bradley seems to have the most exquisite long-range power and placement of them all.

This boy is going to be something special. He already is something special. He’s only 21 years old. What will he be like in five seasons? The mind boggles. I might not even bother with Mathieu in this career—and that’s saying something for me. Bradley is Mathieu turned up to 11.

In the long-term, could Bradley become a ‘cheat player’ for me—almost an Elcherino?

I’ll have to watch this situation carefully, but it’s not an issue at the moment and I don’t think it will be. I have always been average at ‘proper’ PES, as this PSP/PS2 version is; I have always managed to play it for the whole PES year without boredom.

There are times in Master League when, puzzlingly, for no apparent reason whatsoever, you can go several games without scoring a goal. Often the CPU teams can’t score either. 0-0 draws become the order of the day.

My longest such run was back in PES4, I think—about half a dozen games at the start of one season passed without a goalie having to pick the ball out of the back of the net.

The scoreless runs can strike at any time, but I have noticed that they’re most common at the start of a season when you’re playing with several new players and/or you finished the previous season badly.

One day soon I’ll have to look, in detail, at the long-running and vexed question of whether there is a player/team hidden morale setting in Master League. I think there isn’t, but plenty think otherwise.

Here at the start of season 2012 I’ve played four games and scored no goals. I’ve conceded just one goal, against Real Madrid, which meant I lost that game 0-1. With the scoreline blank I was more than holding my own and would have been satisfied with the 0-0 draw. They got the goal in the 87th minute or some accursed minute like that. Damn them all to hell.

The other three games, against various Deportivos and Atleticos etc., all gave me a point apiece. The teams up at the top are already on 12 points and 10 points and so on. I’ve got 3 points. Already, it’ll take a Herculean effort, or failing that an actual miracle, to catch them up. Already, I might just be playing for pride, and for cash, with next season in mind.

Finishing high enough to qualify for Europe has got to be my only realistic target. Could I get into a Champions League spot? Unlikely.

The only bright spot has been Bradley. He’s been ridiculously effective as a DMF.

Bradley was absent from the Madrid game due to tiredness (which may have been a factor in their goal—it built up down the middle). In the other games I’ve found him to be almost superhuman as a defensive force in midfield, great going forward, and a competent stand-in at CB when required.

The only thing he’s let me down on so far is putting the ball in the back of the net. Every time I get him on the ball in the ‘DMF shooting hole’ (everyone who plays a 4-3-3 like mine will know exactly where that is) I let rip with stupendous shots galore. They’ve nearly all gone close, but have either hit woodwork or been saved. One day soon I’m going to score a sixty-yarder with Bradley. I just know it.

Have I mentioned yet that I dislike the next-gen version of PES2008? I might have mentioned it somewhere. Season 2012, my sixth season in this career on the last-gen, PSP/PS2 version, makes this the longest of my three PES2008 careers so far. The first two careers were on the next-gen PS3 version, so they don’t count. Usually I start just one career in October after the game’s release and then play that all year, but this year has not been a regular PES year.

Will I be playing this same last-gen career until the eve of PES2009’s release? Yes. Almost certainly. Barring accident, illness, or general misfortune, I’ll be playing this same Coventry City career for the next 6 months. Every day.

Will we—the wider gaming community at large—still have a concept of last-gen/next-gen consoles come October 2008? I think so. It’s the kind of usage that, once established, takes time to wear off. Games manufacturers have not helped the situation by releasing transparently rushed products onto the next-gen market. There’s a bitter taste in my mouth that won’t go away. Seabass, I am cursing at you.

—————

Onto my transfer activity (I do get wrapped up in my sermonising, don’t I?).

A strong finish to last season left me with 16,516 transfer points in the bank and an existing salary bill of only 9176. There’s plenty of room for manoeuvre and to build up my squad for the testing times ahead. In Division 1 I’ll be playing twice the number of games against significantly better opposition.

I shopped around, checking out all my favourite haunts—Openness to Negotiation, Youths, Advanced Search… I couldn’t seem to buy anyone, strangely.

For some reason no one would come to me, even from the Openness to Negotiation list. I think I know why. I noticed something in the PS3 version that’s just as true in this one. The players all want silly money.

For as long as I have played Master League on PES I have conducted Negotiations in a particular way. I rarely offer players more than their existing salary+100 or so points. In all but a few hardcore cases, this has been enough, down the years. But not in PES2008—you have to all but double their money in this version.

I know that lots of PES players do this anyway to be sure of getting their men, but I like to run a tight ship. The memory of almost going bankrupt and risking a Game Over a few seasons ago is especially raw. I can’t stand the thought of paying over the odds for just a couple of players. I’d rather spread the love and get myself a bunch of young players to develop. Yes, I was off to the Youth list again.

Ioannidis (DMF), age 17 - Looks like he’s got it all. A young clone of Mathieu and Bradley. Speaking of Bradley…

Bradley (CB/DMF/SMF), age 20 - Picked him up from some other club in a speculative trade offer: A Akman+4000 points. I was stunned when the offer was accepted. Akman is a fading, mediocre player. Bradley is… well, he’s Bradley. I’d all but stolen one of PES2008’s greatest players. Bradley was great on the next-gen version of the game, but so was almost everyone else. I never really appreciated him there. Here, on the last-gen version… Bradley is stupendously good. As I type this entry I’ve already played a few games with him—and wow. Just wow.

Bradley goes straight into my First XI as DMF, no messing. And it’s time for Roberto Carlos to claim his regular slot at left back. They’ll both occupy their roles in my team for the next ten seasons at least.

Up front, Podolski moves to the centre while Komol comes in on the left. Komol’s a natural right-footer so it’s not really the best place for him, but it’s the position he scored my greatest PES2008 goal so far from, and I have fond memories of playing Dennis Bergkamp in the same role in PES5, with magnificent results.

The weakest link in my First XI is Nakamura—he was good when I got him, but now he’s ageing and fading fast. As the only naturally left-sided midfielder in my squad he holds his place for now, but I’ll be looking to replace him in the mid-season negotiations.

And that was it. No one else came in. No one else went out. My squad size increases by one player to 23. They’re mostly pretty good players. I don’t expect to do brilliantly well in my first season in Division 1, but we’ll see.