I was 3-1 up on aggregate going into the second leg of the D2 Cup semi final against Spartak Moscow. Within 30 minutes of kickoff I was 2-0 up (5-1 on aggregate).

Both of my goals were scored by Recoba from medium-range in an utterly startling first-half performance. Most startling of all was that he was even on the pitch…

Recoba very rarely actually plays a game. He’s just never fit. Maybe one game in six, on average, he’ll be fit enough to play—but otherwise? Forget it.

He’s the most innately unfit player in the game. I have no idea what he’s like in real life, but in PES2008 he either has a grey form arrow or his stamina is so feeble as to make it not worth picking him. He was exactly the same in PES5, so I knew what I was letting myself in for.

Recoba’s brace made the score 5-1 to me on aggregate, and with two away goals to boot. This meant that Spartak would have to score five goals without reply to win the semi-final.

The remainder of the game was farcical. It was the usual thing. Missed tackles, stumbles, stray passes. My fastest and freshest players visibly being slowed down as I chased for loose balls that I would have easily got to if the score was 0-0. Micro-scripting, in all its anti-glory.

Spartak scored three goals in quick succession just after half time, making it 3-2 to them on the day, and 5-4 to me on aggregate. There were still twenty or so minutes of the game left for them to get the two goals they needed to win, and boy did they try. They didn’t get get them, and I went through to the Final, but I was still mightily annoyed.

For two thirds of the game, after scoring my two early goals, I hadn’t been allowed to play at all.

Some PES players dislike talk about scripting, either because they disbelieve in its existence or they simply regard it as a necessary evil. I’m in the latter camp, but I still like to talk (and complain, ad infinitum) about it. For me it’s one of the joys of being a PES fan.

Scripting sceptics contend that what we are seeing is, in fact, realistic. They say that the suddenly supercharged CPU teams are only reproducing the strenuous efforts that a real-life team will make to get back into a game when behind.

This argument would be persuasive to me, but for one thing: What about the strenuous efforts that the real-life winning team will make to protect its lead? I’ve never seen a slow pass to a defender in open space randomly bounce off his calf into the path of a striker, or a fresh, speedy winger suddenly lose the ability to run with the ball just because their team is winning.

The nearest parallel I can think of is from racing games like Gran Turismo, where if you are behind you can always catch up to the car(s) in front; and if you are ahead the cars behind can always catch up to you. The game is just coded that way. Ditto PES. Sometimes, of course, you can be too far ahead in both games for anyone to catch you. But the underlying ‘auto-catchup’ mechanic is there nevertheless.

Scripting is a reality in PES and has been very much in-your-face and blithely unashamed about it for the past couple of versions. And yet the denials keep coming from Konami Towers. Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Seabass? (That was going to be the title of today’s post, but in the end I went with the usual tabloid-style pun.)

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Back in the League I took on Parma at home and then Benfica away. Parma turned me over 1-2. I had two players sent off—Gatti and Pjinatnigh—but gave myself hope late on with this goal from Caracciolo:

Against Benfica I ended up drawing 3-3 despite being 2-0 and 3-1 up at various stages. This time I felt that I was just sloppy in defence rather than the victim of any kind of scripting. Caracciolo got two of my goals, Altintop the third. Those two are a great partnership up front.

And then it was the eve of the D2 Cup Final. My opponents are Sampdoria. It’s the biggest game of my season and of my Singers FC career so far. There are points and prestige at stake. If I win I should get that team ranking up to ‘C’ and be able to sign some better players for next season’s big promotion push.

I was all set to play the match, but late in the game against Benfica I’d seen a pop-up system message from my PlayStation3.

My wireless controller is almost out of juice and must be recharged. The console is too far away from where I sit for me to comfortably plug in the charging cable and play on from my usual reclining position on the bed. I’d have to stand up and play in the middle of the room. I’m not going to do that, so… it’s a roll-over.

Whoah, as they say. It’ll be February tomorrow. Where did that come from?

It seems like only a few days ago we were hunkering down to get through the Christmas and New Year revelries. And now here we are, munching through at least two Cadbury’s Creme Eggs per day (well, I am) and noticing that the days are getting longer and milder.

At this rate you could almost stretch out your arm and snap your fingers - click - and it’ll be October, and we’ll be salivating at the approach of PES2009.

By now, there’ll almost certainly be an almost-complete version of the game running somewhere at Team Seabass HQ, and tentative plans for PES2010 will have been drawn up. I almost don’t like to think about it. Perhaps living in the future is as bad as living in the past.

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So, I played the first leg of the D2 Cup semi final, against Spartak Moscow, one of the division’s weaker sides.

I played a very good game despite the CPU being predictably supercharged throughout. I had to bide my time, pass the ball, keep possession, and defend with discipline, but I got there. I won 3-1. I was not happy about conceding the away goal but I believe I have done enough to make things comfortable in the second leg. Altintop and Caracciolo started together for the first time (I think) and scored all three of my goals, with Altintop bagging the brace.

Next it was back to the League, which is a wash-out for me this season. But still, you have to keep going. There’s transfer points to be won if nothing else.

I took on AEK Athens at home and won a hard-earned draw after conceding a late goal. Lots of times in PES, you can take almost as much—or more—satisfaction from a bread and butter goal than from a picture-book goal. I loved scoring this one (Altintop again):

Torino turned up in the next game and beat me 0-1 at home, which I was not happy about. It was almost a carbon copy of the Athens game, except without the late equaliser.

Things were righted in the next match. Earlier this season Real Zaragoza beat me 1-6 at home in my heaviest defeat in a PES Master League game ever. Elcherino, my former star player, got four of their goals. Ouch, and ouch again.

But the times are changing. Over this season I have shed more and more of my bad habits, and acquired more and more discipline. I think I’m more or less back where I was (the zone, I think they call it) when I was tearing up trees with my Coventry City team the first time around.

I went to Zaragoza’s ground and absolutely trounced them. 1-5 to me. Sweet, sweet revenge. (Elcherino wasn’t playing for them in this game, which probably helped…)

All five of my goals are in the clip. Altintop got a hat trick.

My favourite moment came during the build-up to the second goal. I started a breakaway after a Zaragoza attack, played a perfectly-weighted through ball with Camacho to Altintop, and finished the move with aplomb. Camacho had yet another great game but I got him sent off in the second half when I was chasing the sixth goal and trying too hard to get the ball back.

When I fired up PES2008 this morning, my PS3 blinked at me a couple of times, then displayed the news that there was another patch for the game. It was 130MB in size and took a little over three minutes to download.

This was a surprise. I’ve heard no rumours about another patch. When the game started I was keen to see what changes had been made. I think that this patch may be intended to rectify the still-awful condition of the PS3’s online game. I’m not big on online play and I didn’t have time this morning to go online to find out what, if anything, has changed.

One thing that I was hoping for was for pre-game kit selection to be introduced in all offline game modes. But no, it wasn’t. We’re going to be left twisting in the wind on this one all year. Kit selection exists in Exhibition mode, so why, in the name of all that’s holy, is it missing in every other mode? Why?

First impressions of offline gameplay after the new patch is that replays seem to be a lot smoother, and actually watchable most of the time. But you can never underestimate the placebo effect. I’ve got a few days off work and will be playing PES2008 a lot - online and offline - so I’ll post in a day or two about this new patch.

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Here in the last third of the season, it’s time to face up to something: the Superleague is hard.

Thanks to the cash brought in by Elcherino’s notorious/celebrated run in my team last season, I bought players well above the ability levels of the players I had at a similar stage of my last ML career.

I should be achieving a lot more with this squad. Instead I’m plodding along in the bottom 8 of the table. It’ll all have to improve next season.

Feyenoord 1-0 Singers FC

This was actually the first-leg match of the D2 Cup Quarter Final - something I didn’t realise until after the match was over and the post-match calendar revealed the shocking truth. I’d just played one of the most important games of my season without knowing it. Er. Ooops?

Never mind. I’d still played as well as I could. I just couldn’t seem to get a break for the whole game. Feyenoord were in supercharged mode throughout. Despite this, I enjoyed the overwhelming share of possession - 75% at half time, 61% at full time. Possession counts for nothing on its own.

I’ll have to play really well in the second leg to advance to the semis. I want that trophy. If nothing else, it’d boost my club ranking and enable me to get some great players in the off-season. I’m going to need them in 2009.

Spartak Moscow 1-0 Singers FC

Back to the league. I had two players sent off. Bale was red-carded for a professional foul (naughty me, but no complaints). I reorganised my team, going to two up front and bringing on Ruskin for Leonardo. Then Ruskin was sent off for a typical PES2008 nothing-tackle. He’d been on the pitch for one minute.

D2 Cup Quarter Final 2nd leg:
Singers FC 3-0 Feyenoord (3-1 on aggregate)

(I knew it was the Cup this time.)

I made it. In truth, it was easy. Feyenoord were strangely subdued, or my lads were on fire, or both, or the Team Seabass script in the game’s dark heart was written in my favour, or all of these together were true, or none of them were true and I’m a fool, or, or - oh, who cares? I was happy.

Here are the goals:

I had Bale sent off again near the end. That boy’s getting himself a reputation. Referees are picking on him, I swear it.

Singers FC 0-2 Ajax

A post-Cup hangover saw my subdued, lightweight team get turned over with ease by the Dutch masters.

Singers FC 2-0 Marseille

Leonardo finally scored his first goal, a tap-in from six yards after a goalkeeper fumble. I’ll take it…