It’s been a long old journey from then to now. Not as long as my journeys in previous PES years. (PES2008 will always suffer in comparison to its previous selves.) But it’s been long enough.

I sleepwalked through what was left of the League: West Ham 0, Coventry City 5. Andy Cole got 4 goals in this game.

Manchester United finally lost one, meaning that a win in my next fixture would seal the Championship title.

That next fixture was against my forthcoming D1 Cup Final opponents, Aston Villa. (This often happens in PES. Especially in the early stages of a season. With two-legged cup ties, sometimes you can end up playing the same opponents three times in a row.)

I beat Aston Villa 5-3, and took the title. Here’s Captain Schwarz leading the celebrations:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVYYWDWLYI&rel=1]

It was the easiest League title I have ever won on any instalment of PES. Still, it was my first title in PES2008. This season was memorable for many good reasons. It would be churlish of me to grumble any more now (there’s plenty of time left until PES2009 for that.)

The only thing left to go for in the League was a goal difference of +100 or more. (Schwarz, with 29 goals, was already the runaway Golden Boot winner.)

I beat Galatasaray 5-2. Orellano got a hat trick, playing in the centre CF slot in place of Schwarz, who has been blue- or grey-arrowed for almost every game lately.

The final league game was against Bolton. I went into it with a goal difference of +99. Easy, right?

Well, once again I tried too hard. I found myself 0-1 down and with just 9 players by the middle of the second half. No problem. This is PES2008, after all. I scored two late goals with my 9 men and won 2-1, taking me to a goal difference of exactly +100 in the final table.

My final goals scored tally was 136. One hundred and thirty-six. In one season. Ridiculous.

Here’s a full list of my team’s goal-scoring/assists performance this season:

(The discrepancy of 4 goals is made up for by CPU own goals, and one or two goals that Bramble got before I traded him mid-season.)

As can be inferred from the list, I’ve been less than dutiful in reporting just how effective Shimizu and Andy Cole have been for me up front this season. Some of my Schwarz-centric posts might have suggested that Coventry City was a one-man team. Not so.

Andy Cole in particular deserves a special mention. He’s another player I don’t think I’ve seen the best of, despite his 15 goals this season. Along with Beerens, I’ll be allowing myself to get him again next time around. Schwarz and Shimizu definitely won’t be allowed.

Final position: 1st (103 pts)
Won:33 Drew:4 Lost:1
Goals scored:136 Goals conceded:36 Goal difference:+100
Yellow cards: 34 Red cards: 6

———————-

The Division 1 Cup Final against Aston Villa was a peculiar game. Villa took the lead, I equalised. Villa equalised, I took the lead again. Then Villa took the lead. It was 3-2 to them going into half time. I was frustrated and more than a little tense. With the Treble apparently sitting on a plate begging to be eaten, I was in danger of throwing it away.

I shouldn’t have worried, though. I scored three goals in the second half and won the Cup 5-3 (the exact same score of my League title decider against Villa). The pick of the goals was this peach of a strike from Beerens:

I do love a goal that finds the postage stamp corner of the net. This one was achieved with a minimum of backlift, which always makes a player’s technique stats shine through.

I only got to play with Beerens for this one season. He’s still only 24. In my next Master League I’m banning myself from having all but a few players that I’ve had in this career. Beerens will be one of the exceptions.

——————–

After all of the fireworks in the League and D1 Cup, the ECC Final against Barcelona was relatively anti-climactic. I was nervous going into the game, and once again I conceded an early goal.

The amount of early goals conceded in big games is extremely dubious. It could be a result of being a little more uptight than usual, and playing in a withdrawn, over-careful manner; or it could just be PES’s pesky scripting; or it could be a mixture of the two. Or it could be something else. Coincidence, maybe. There sure are a lot of coincidences in PES2008…

I chose to man-mark Ronaldinho with Bradley in this game (I never usually bother with man-marking), and the buck-toothed wonderboy was pretty anonymous throughout, despite me rarely seeing Bradley within so much as 5 yards of him, all game.

I held firm against Barcelona’s persistent pressure. I got my equaliser with Bradley scuffing a shot over the line during a goal-mouth scramble.

I got the winner with Reyes toward the end. 2-1 to me. And that was that.

The Treble was in the bag. I had fought a war on three fronts throughout a long, long season, and been victorious on all of them.

——————-

It was difficult to progress in the Cups on one or two occasions. The absence of Italian clubs in Europe takes the gloss off winning the ECC. The League took its time to ripen and fall into my lap, thanks to Man Yoo’s peculiar reluctance to lose any of their games.

But it was all just too easy, in the final analysis.

The reasons why it was too easy have been gone over again and again (and again) here and on dozens of other PES-focused sites. Goalkeepers have emerged as the #1 reason why there are so many goals in next-gen PES2008. The keepers in the game are broken.

There is also the matter of player pace. In years gone by, your players’ pace and acceleration stats meant next to nothing. The slowest CPU team defender could catch the quickest human team player. We complained and griped and grumbled about it for so long that they finally caved in. The result? Every player is a potential Maradona. This is a tough one to criticise Seabass & co. for. What he/they should have done was to find a way to make CPU defensive AI a lot better.

But this is not the place for a PES2008 post-mortem. Not now.

There’s life in the old dog yet. I’ll say it again: the core PES gameplay of next-gen PES2008 is as good as it’s ever been. (In my opinion. Other opinions differ.)

—————–

Here’s the download link to my final saved game file: PS3.zip

WARNING! Transferring this game save to your PS3 will overwrite any ML save of your own that’s called Master League 03. Proceed with caution.

Any PS3-owner with a USB stick who’s curious to see my players and check out my season-by-season record is welcome to do so. Anyone who might want to pick up where I left off and play on is also welcome to do so.

The save file will place you in week 1 of negotiations at the end of season 2012, with the squad that won the Treble.

——————-

NEXT on peschronicles: next-gen FIFA08 week.

I said I was going to do it. And now I’m going to go ahead and do it.

I could do with a break from PES2008 (familiarity breeds you-know-what). I have a lot of unfinished business to deal with in FIFA08.

PES vs. FIFA is an ongoing (and largely dull) debate.

Until this year (or arguably last year, with FIFA07) PES vs. FIFA was a no-brainer. PES was the thougtful, mature, simulation-oriented football game for mature gamers of all ages. FIFA was the arcadey, pass-pass-shoot game for kids of all ages. There was little or no argument to be had. PES all the way.

Well. In retrospect, PES-lovers can see that our unshakeable confidence in the franchise was unrealistic. Next-gen FIFA08 is the first serious challenger to PES ever.

Over the next seven days I’ll be talking about my progress with FIFA08. I’ll discuss its gameplay specifically in relation to the PES series and to PES2008 in particular. I’ll be treating FIFA08 as a game in its own right (of course), but it’s only natural that much of my attention will be through PES-tinted spectacles.

—————-

After that it’ll be back to Master League on PES2008. In a Superleague. Starting all over again with the Default players. I can’t wait.

O’Shea was a risky pre-season signing in many ways: past his peak, and slightly average even at his peak.

But he has been more than adequate in defence, and presents a danger up front at corners. It’s been a long time coming, but he got his first goal for Coventry City. It was an atypical situation for him - receiving the ball in open play just outside the box:

In off the post, lovely. Incidentally - see where Marcos chests the ball down following the initial clearance? Well, in PESes past, I’d have first-timed a volley at the goal, but in PES2008 the shoot button seems to be disabled in these kinds of circumstances. Thus I have become adept at doing what I did with Marcos here: turning away, shielding the ball, and laying it off.

In this game I was constantly battling for possession and trying to make something happen. Some matches are just like that. Blackburn scored again to make the score 1-2. Who should step up to get my second equaliser but Braafheid, my other so-far non-scoring defender:

In off the same post. How peculiar.

After losing 1-2 to Man Utd (tough game) and then thumping the Villa 4-2, I received a notification message: qualification for next season’s European Championships was assured. It was mathematically impossible for me to finish outside the top 6.

This left a couple of fairly meaningless games to get out of the way before the end of the season. All that was at stake was whether I would finish 3rd or 4th. I had my heart set on 3rd, and played accordingly.

I destroyed Arsenal 4-2 at their ground. Or better to say: Schwarz destroyed them. I was 3-0 up by half time thanks to yet another Schwarz hat trick. His third goal was a bit special:

Another replay angle showed that I’ve still not achieved my aim of planting a long-ranger in the ‘postage stamp’ corner of the net just yet. The ball veers toward the centre of the goal. Schwarz’s shooting power alone beats the keeper. (I’ll post a clip here of this other replay view in a day or two.)

Arsenal came back at me, scoring two completely lame goals that made me groan. Happily, I went up their end late on and secured the win with a poacher’s goal from Chiesa.

Going into the final game of the season against Anderlecht, Schwarz was the division’s top score with 23 goals. Rooney was just behind him with 22. I thought Rooney was sure to score at least one goal in Man Utd’s final game. I played Schwarz against Anderlecht despite his stamina bar being only three quarters full. I figured it was worth the risk, as it was the last game of the season and there was always the chance he’d sneak a goal or two.

I beat Anderlecht 4-1. Traore got a hat trick this time. Bramble headed in from a corner. Schwarz had a poor game, lumbering around with his low stamina.

There was no need to worry, though. Rooney didn’t score, and Schwarz finished the season as the Golden Boot winner.

I finished 3rd by two points (Liverpool drew their last game).

So Chelsea won the league with 93 points - 18 ahead of me - and they lost only 3 games all season. That’s fairly realistic, I suppose - real league winners tend not to lose more than a handful of games all season. It’s something I’ll have to replicate next season if I’m going to challenge for the league - as I expect to do. I’ll be looking for at least three top-drawer players in the negotiations coming up.

——————–

Here’s something I’ve never done before: my Player of the Season, and my personal favourite Goal of the Season.

Schwarz has to be Player of the Season. He got 23 goals in 38 games - and he should have had more. With better players and more experience next season, I’d hope for Schwarz to get 50 goals.

Marcos and Guimaraes are joint runners-up for Player of the Season. Marcos has been superb for a player of such modest abilities. Guimaraes has become a true star in my team. But Schwarz’s all-round performances - not just his goals - have been consistently phenomenal all season.

My Goal of the season: Reyes vs Bolton. You’ll see hundreds of ‘better’ goals in all kinds of places, but this is my personal favourite right now - I just love the technique, the lack of backlift, the high graceful loop over the keeper (I’m gushing with praise about Reyes here, not myself. All I do is press buttons):

In many ways I prefer the long-range Schwarz strike from the Arsenal game, but the Reyes goal just looks beautiful.

And so that was season 2011. No relegation battle this time. Just a season of consolidation. If I’d got to grips with PES2008 a bit quicker (what was wrong with me this year?), I’d have been challenging for the title. I’m ready and waiting for the start of season 2012. I’ll be shooting for the Treble. Scoring 81 goals in a season would have won me the league by a long way in previous instalments of the game.

I’ll score 100+ goals next season. The question is: how many will I let in?

Final position: 3rd (75 pts)
Won:23 Drew:6 Lost:9
Goals scored:81 Goals conceded:47 Goal difference:+34
Yellow cards: 31 Red cards: 6