Yes, that’s a drearily predictable post title from your ever-punning PES blogger… (Although it’s not strictly a pun, but never mind.) I decided to go with it rather than the more traditional ‘pre-season 2020 negotiations’ title because a) I cannot resist wordplay, and b) actual negotiations were thin on the ground in this particular pre-season phase.

My existing squad has just won me a pretty emphatic Treble. There’s an old and venerable saying that goes something like: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

None of my players are over the age of 32. Even the few who are nearing that mark (Dos Santos, Komol, and a few others) are still amazingly gifted players who can do a job for me when necessary. In fact, they can do a bit more than just ‘a job’ for me—they’d be worthy of regular starting places if there weren’t other, younger players ahead of them. Thus I don’t need to ‘retire’ any players, and I don’t need any new players. So what exactly was I up to in this negotiations period? Why didn’t I simply press X seven times (or is it eight times?) and have done with it?

As I’ve mentioned before, I usually play one Master League career indefinitely for the entire PES year. That’s what I’m doing again this year. I’m not even vaguely tempted to restart and do it all over again with a new Master League team, not even as an experiment (so don’t think about suggesting it, because it’s not ever gonna happen).

2020 will be my 14th season. In years gone by it’s around about now in a Master league career that I start thinking about what will happen to my team in three or four seasons’ time. In 2024 a lot of my current crop of players will be at or near retirement age. My current youthful stars will be starting to decline. I’ve always found it best to start planning for that stage right now.

So I popped along to the Youth list. (I could never, under any circumstances, call it the ‘Rookie’ list, just as I will never call a football team’s strip a ‘uniform’.)

Once again I found the list pretty bare. I suppose it’s still a mite too early for some of the game’s megastars to have played their full careers, retired, and come back as Regens. (Rooney and Torres, both late-thirtysomethings, are still out there playing.)

I only signed two players—Scholes and Saviola. They’re both 18 years old, so I must have missed seeing them last year. Lucky for me that no one else picked them up.

I’m a big fan of Paul Scholes in real life. Like every other great English player of his generation, he failed dismally to establish himself on the international stage, but at club level he was magnificent in his prime. And he’s still not too bad now. I was delighted to get him as a raw 18-year-old. When his time comes, he’ll be a solid replacement for Camacho out there on the right side of midfield. (Camacho will be 30 next season!)

As for Saviola, I have fond memories of this player from PES6. In every Master League career there comes a time when you get your first real, proper striker, and you start to play the ball around him and score goals regularly with him after a long, dour struggle with the Defaults, and it’s just magical. In PES6, that striker was Saviola. His stats look pretty good right now even for an 18-year-old. (And for some reason, he’s been given a starting Agility stat of 97 - ! At the age of 18. How very peculiar.)

I didn’t get anyone else. The two new boys will sit on the bench. I’ll play them whenever I think I can get away with playing them. It’s actually a few seasons too early for wholesale rebuilding efforts. The crunch for me and this squad will come when several of my players start hitting their mid-thirties and I have to start releasing them. I’ll only keep a few of them to let them have that emotional farewell game before their retirement. I’m not sentimental.

The 2019 season is almost here and it’s time to discuss my attitude towards Regens in Master League. At this stage of a career the established players who populated the game at the beginning all start to retire. I’m thinking of the likes of Rooney, Torres, Gerrard, Kaka—all among the very best players that the game has to offer. Lots of PES players forbid themselves from having Regens or Classic players

My policy on Regens and Classic players is simple: I’m allowed to have them. Next-gen PES2008 and a certain Mr Elcherino apart, they’re not overpowered for me in ‘original’ PES and they never have been. I’m only an average PES player and the Regens don’t ruin my game—they enhance it. Part of the fun of playing an ML career indefinitely all year, as I do, is bearing witness to the comings and goings of the great players. When Rooney retires—as he will in the next few seasons—and returns as a 17-year-old, will he be as good or better than he was the first time around? In my experience, the Regens are usually better, because you get the opportunity to develop them from the start of their new career or soon afterwards. That’s if you can get them as soon as they regenerate, of course.

You have to keep a close eye on the Youth list to catch the Regens you want as soon as they regenerate. Otherwise an AI club will swoop in for them and you’ll end up having to pay a king’s ransom further down the line. But sometimes that’s okay. If I’ve got a large squad and I’m always playing big games, a raw 17-year-old won’t get many appearances. Often it’s more efficient to let a young player develop at another club for a few seasons before trying to get him. By this stage of an ML career, money is usually no object.

Thierry Henry was sitting in the Non-Affiliated list just waiting to be picked up. He’s 20 years old. Obviously he must have popped up as a Regen a few seasons ago and I somehow missed seeing him (which was very sloppy of me). The peculiar thing is that no AI club snapped him up, which is what usually happens to the great Regens. Never mind. I was happy to find him waiting for me to give him a home.

Another striker I picked up, albeit on a ‘proper’ transfer, was a 24-year-old Christian Vieri. This player was a semi-legend for me back in the halcyon days of PES5. He’s only young at the moment and looking good again. I offered his club Shevchenko+a few thousand points for him, and of course they took my offer. Shevchenko was disappointing for me. He always seemed rather lightweight on the ball, and he lacked his legendary pace. In a game where every great attacking player has got explosive pace, Shevchenko just seemed rather ordinary. Maybe next time, Andriy.

Back in the Non-Affiliated list (I do flit around among these lists during a transfer period) I found a quality centre-back called Runzal, and added him to my squad. Last season I just felt I was conceding too easily too often. I still don’t know what is at greater fault, my carelessness or the more open, attacking play of PES2008. It’s probably a mix of both, but a top-quality extra CB won’t hurt.

Back in the Youth list proper, I couldn’t see any legends reborn. So I located and got a couple of solid old PES names—Chivu and Caracciolo. Chivu will be a good replacment for Roberto Carlos at LB when the latter eventually ages and declines, as he will inevitably do at some stage. Caracciolo was a great striker for me on next-gen PES2008—yes, yes, yes, everyone is a great striker on the shallow next-gen PES2008, but I’m curious to see how the big man performs here in a classic PES. These two are both 17, so their opportunities in the coming few seasons will be limited. I will try to play them whenever I feel I can get away with it, though.

Regarding my First XI, it’s time to make a long-overdue decision. Kim Cyun Hi has to go and sit on the bench, at least for now. He’s been a very good striker but, for me, hardly the prodigious talent that other PES players have found him to be. I suppose it comes down to differing play-styles as well as a certain random element within individual Master League careers. I’m sure Kim will be an excellent stand-in striker when called upon, as he often will be.

Schwarz therefore returns to his natural role in the centre of my strikeforce. Thinking back across all the PES years, I’ve always played with a big man in the middle of my front three. The last few seasons with Kim Cyun Hi in that position have been exceptions. So I’m going back to my roots.

Del Piero has now got too good to be left out of the First XI. He’s 24 right now in my Master League, and a true phenomenon. Leaving him out of my First XI now would be a crime against Pro Evolution Soccer. He’s not a natural CF but he’s always played superbly there when required. I’ll pick him in place of Andy Cole, who also drops to the bench.

Giggs is irreplaceable out there on the left. I’ve always regarded Stoichkov in PES3 as the best left-sided striker I’ve ever played with in PES, but Giggs could take that crown. It’ll be another few seasons before I can be sure, but the boy is a real wonder.

Back in the centre of defence, Couto has been good but not great. Runzal, my new CB, is statistically worse than Couto, but I want to develop Runzal, so in he comes.

I had to release some players. I had no further need for Larsson, Jong-a-Pin, and Laurito. This leaves my squad at a very healthy 28 players. I think this is the optimum number necessary for what will be a very ambitious season 2019.

In 2019 I want to win the Treble, and last the whole league season unbeaten, and concede less than 20 goals. We’ll see how all of that goes…

The coming season 2018 will be my twelfth season in this Master League career with my custom Coventry City team. A few seasons ago I won a Treble—League, Cup, European Cup—but last season, 2017, I won nothing. I only came close to winning something in the Division 1 Cup, where I lost in the final on penalties. It was a bad season. I was sulky and complacent, often just pressing buttons instead of actually playing.

A lot of factors affected me. There was scripting, for one. This controversial aspect of PES is as bad as it’s ever been. After playing so many seasons the way the game massages not just individual matches, but the overall story arc of a season, became so glaringly obvious that I ceased to take the entire game seriously, for a while.

There were other factors. There was simple PES fatigue, unrelated to the whole scripting thing (I love chilli con carne, but if I ate it every day I’d soon tire of it; ditto PES). There was the allure of FIFA08, and other games. There was a busy work and personal life, packed with things to distract me… My peak in PES came in 2005 when I was unemployed; perhaps my sky-high regard for that year’s PES5 is a reflection of that time.

But now I’m back, I think. Towards the end of last season I rallied a little, and could have snatched the league title at the death if I’d only focused just that little bit more. I’m still determined to win what I regard as a proper Treble in this game. The season I did win it felt very much as if the game had awarded me the Treble just for hanging in there. I really want to win the league by a lot of points, not by goal difference on the last day.

My existing squad (left) has become a problem. It’s too full. It’s time to trim the fat. For about a season and a half I’ve had a squad of near enough the maximum 32 players. All but a few of them have been the top players in their positions. This has meant that I’ve barely used some really great players.

I started looking for players to release. Not transfer—after the first couple of seasons, no CPU team ever buys players from the human team. This is a massive fault in the game’s transfer market that has surely got to be fixed for PES2009. (Along with a lot else.)

I released Mathieu. He’s been my ML talisman for a couple of memorable years now. Releasing him is a bit of a departure, to say the least. It hurt quite a bit to do it, but I had to do it. Unlike in previous PESes where Mathieu was completely dominant from the outset, he’s less so this time around. I got him too late and played him too little for him to reach his usual sensational heights. I’ll keep an eye on the Youth list and get him again when he Regenerates. Then I’ll see if Mathieu can be great again.

I also released Donk, Traore, Shubin, and Podolski. The latter was actually the hardest. At his peak, Podolski was my top striker. Big, strong, and skilful, he was my Schwarz before I got the actual Schwarz. But he’s in his 30s now, and in serious decline. The others are all above-average players, but could never be anything more than squad players. As such they’re taking up space and getting in the way of the talent.

I was looking for a top-rated left-sided AMF. I went on an Advanced search, and found Burdner. It was a toss-up between Burdner and Malgani, but I had Malgani in my PES6 ML team, and felt like trying out Burdner. I offered Burdner’s team one of my three goalkeepers, Lehmann, as part-exchange for him, and was successful at the first attempt.

All of which reduces my squad size for 2018 from 32 players to 27 players. That’s roughly where I want it to be. On the First XI front, Burdner comes straight in and Dos Santos drops to the bench (he’ll be an able deputy). In the centre of defence it’s time for Couto to take a starting place again.

I’ll make no other changes for now. I toyed with a couple of ideas—dropping Kim Cyun Hi and restoring Schwarz to the central attacking role, replacing Giggs with Del Piero, shifting Camacho to DMF, and a few other things. But I’ll leave it alone for now, and review things in the mid-season.