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.

Donadel. I first mentioned him in Season’s End; and Under Pressure. Almost as an afterthought, I mentioned him again in 4-3-3 ftw!

Who is Donadel? He’s the player who’s turned my season around, is who.

It started when Duffy got himself sent off in a game against Besiktas. This is going back a good bit, now. At least 10 games, maybe more.

I was 0-1 down. I took off Schwarz and moved things around up front. I noticed for the first time that Donadel - a CMF - could play at DMF as well. There was nobody else to fill in (Suzuki was blue-arrowed for that game), so on came Donadel.

His impact on the game was electrifying. I got a goal back within minutes. He had nothing to do with it directly, but he had broken up a couple of CPU moves in a manner that seemed more… decisive, somehow, than any other DMF I’ve played with so far on PES2008.

I’m used to playing with 10 men by now. In fact I even play a little better with 10 men. It’s the same in PES2008 as it is in real life. The 10 men tighten up, concentrate more, take more care with their passing. The single human player of PES2008 does the same thing.

It suddenly seemed to me that Donadel was a giant. He was everywhere on both sides of the pitch. Tracking back to help out both SBs. Sitting in front of the CBs, blocking shots and making tackles. Going forward and linking up with the AMFs. The only thing it seemed he couldn’t do was unleash rockets at goal a la Mathieu and other notable DMFs. But that’s something I’m happy to live without, when he plays like this as a DMF.

Ever since, he’s been my first-choice DMF. When he plays, and when Shaw and Shimizu play too, I don’t think I can be beaten. The three of them completely dominate the midfield every time. In the one or two games that I lost recently, I lost hard - and Donadel didn’t play.

In the game, he’s 26 now. In real life, today in 2007, he’s still 24 and playing for Fiorentina.

Looking at the real Marco Donadel’s mugshot, his game face seems to be a fairly good likeness. Not great, but good enough. They’ve captured the essence of his face, I think - the slightly hangdog, almost droopy look:

Ahhh, that’s better. Slipping the PES6 disc into the console and picking up the familiar joypad feels like coming home. I still feel bad about abandoning the PSP version - but, hey, the fact that I’d had it for nearly a year before only recently trying to get into it is a telling sign.

Straight into an International Cup tournament, playing as England on the Top Player difficulty level. My personal default 4-3-3 formation looks like this:

Yes, I know: it’s a typical ‘computer-gamey’ football formation. A real-life manager of a real-life team would faint to see it. The midfielders are spaced too widely apart. There’s too much space between midfield and attack. That lone DMF won’t afford much protection against CPU counter-attacks. I know all of its faults as well as I know my own name. But this formation, and 4-3-3 formations like it, have served me incredibly well for many years now. The possession you concede in midfield is more than made up for by the attacking threats you pose, especially down the wings. I vary the formation according to which team and players I’m playing with. The 4-3-3 seen above is not the 4-3-3 I’ll usually start with at the outset of a Master League career, for example. Castolo and Huylens et al would hardly get a kick of the ball.

Why do I have Steven Gerrard on the left side of midfield? Rather than on the right, or even in his other great position as a DMF? (With his thunderous long-range shooting, Gerrard is almost the ideal DMF for an attacking 4-3-3) It’s because I want to accommodate Hargreaves as my DMF, and Gerrard is just as good on the left side of midfield (in PES6 anyway) as on the right; he also manages to work his way into just as many long-range shooting opportunities as he would from the DMF position. Maybe more.

Joe Cole as a right-sided CF? Another questionable choice, but he is so effective in the position - and has been for a couple of PESes now - that like any good player playing well, he virtually picks himself. At times I almost prefer him to Owen.

After an awkward first half of the opening match against Spain, which I ended up drawing 1-1 (struggling to re-re-readjust to proper PES, after my adventures with the PSP version of the game, and also with FIFA08), I sailed through the remaining group matches, thumping Nigeria 4-0 on the way with a brace each from Rooney and Owen. Rooney in PES6 is a little overpowered for my liking.

Next up in the first knockout game is… Brazil.