PES Chronicles

One of my players may have to go. When the mid-season negotiations come along, I may have to exchange him for another player, or even release him.

I’m talking about my talented left-sided AMF, Melengue. (Actually he’s right-footed, but can play on either side.) Of late I have started to go on wonder dribbles with him. What is a wonder dribble? This is a wonder dribble:

That’s a goal I scored with my right-back, Guimaraes, in my last Master League career.

People who have not played PES2008 on the PS3 (or on the Xbox360 or PC) have a hard time believing that goals like the above were scored on Top Player difficulty. They look like goals scored on Beginner difficulty in old-gen PES.

But no: they’re scored on Top Player, and they’re easy to do in every game, against any opposition, with almost any player if you’re determined enough. This is precisely why so many of us are down on next-gen PES2008. You have to see it and experience it for yourself to (dis)believe it. (How could they ever have thought it would pass muster? Curse you, Seabass.)

By my own House Rules I am not allowed to have any players who are—or who might become—routine wonder dribblers in the Guimaraes/Elcherino mode. Most players can do the wonder dribble, but with a certain type of player (far too many) it’s effortless to do the wonder dribble.

And Melengue looks as if he’s turning into a wonder dribbler.

He scored my winner in a 0-1 victory at Liverpool. It was a bit of a wonder dribble, beating two men on the wing, cutting inside and beating two more, and slotting the ball home with insulting ease. In any PES before PES2008, scoring a goal like that would have had me off my seat and running around the room, screaming like a lunatic. Really. But in next-gen PES2008, such goals are as common as muck. I barely twitched an eyelid and I didn’t even watch the replay.

Melengue was unfit for the next game against top-of-the-table Man Utd. This one ended 2-2, a result I was happy with after going behind twice. I had Matuzalem sent off late on. That was my first red card this season.

Melengue was back against Newcastle, and again scored the winner in a 1-0 victory—and again it was a wonder dribble.

People can say: don’t use the wonder dribble. But with the player on the park and the ball at his feet, where is the line to be drawn? Are one-twos to be banned as well, because of the ease with which they can scythe open a CPU defence at certain times?

For me, the only way to deny myself the use of the wonder dribble is not to play with those players who can do it easily. This is an alarming number of players—who has ever heard of Melengue?!

I’ll be keeping a careful eye on him. If he keeps it up, I’ll bench him and then get rid of him in the mid-season negotiations.

Ahhh, Europe. Continent of style, culture - and regular, world-engulfing, armed conflicts (we’re long overdue the next one). Europe is also home to a couple of other remarkable things: the greatest club football teams on Earth, and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Struggling against Chelsea and Real Madrid in my quest for the PES2008 Treble, I found myself calling to mind one of Eurovision’s most memorable tunes.The nature of the battle just seemed so evocative somehow.

In the League, there is no struggle: it’s a question of when, not if I win it. The two Cups are more delicately poised, as only Cup competitions can be.

———-

After drawing 2-2 away against Chelsea in the first leg of the D1 Cup semi-final, I was happy enough. Two away goals are nothing to be sniffed at. I went into the return leg completely confident of victory. This is a dangerous mindset to be in. Sometimes, even PES2008 will creep up and mug you when you go into a match thinking you only have to turn up to win it. I’ve come a cropper once or twice.

But I approached the second leg in the right frame of mind: fully concentrated and with a grim purpose. Now that I’ve decided to restart Master League once this season is over, I’m even more focused on winning the Treble.

I beat Chelsea 3-0 at my ground, winning the semi final 5-2 on aggregate.

It was not as straightforward as it sounds. I had to wait a long time for my first goal. Chelsea probed and harried. I had little time on the ball, and created no clear-cut chances. Chelsea missed a couple of good opportunities. As half-time approached I felt myself getting tense. While it was 0-0 there was always the chance they’d sneak a goal. I wanted a goal for myself to give me some insurance.

Then I got it. Traore collected the ball in the centre of midfield. I went off on a run, evaded a couple of defenders, then let one rip. It struck the far post and bounced across the goal, dropping inside the net on the other side:

I exhaled with relief. Now I was certain of the win. I killed off the match with two more quick goals.

So I am through to the Division 1 Cup Final. There I will play… Aston Villa. How very exciting.

————-

In the second leg of the European Cup semi final I was a lot less confident of progress. In the first leg I’d allowed Real Madrid to score two away goals at my ground. I did get two goals of my own to make it 2-2, but it still meant I had to score at Real Madrid’s place or crash out of the tournament, and thus fail at the Treble, and thus be unhappy.

Real Madrid impressed me a lot in the first leg. They played probably the best that any CPU team has played against me in PES2008.

They started just as impressively in the second leg. Their left back, Drenthe, is not only big and strong (more like a CB than a SB), he is also very quick and very deadly with crosses. He raced down my wing after about ten minutes and hoisted a ball into the box. There was Raul to nod home, making it 1-0 to Madrid on the night.

Oh, crap.

Still, I’d known that I’d have to score at least once in this game to win it. Now I had to score at least twice. Pesky away goals. Who invented them?

As the half wore on it looked as if it wasn’t going to be my night. I just had that feeling. The feeling you get from a PES match when everything is an ordeal. Simple passes that go astray; shots that scream miles over the bar, or straight down the keeper’s throat; tackles that miss completely or leave the opposition player flat on the ground as the referee reaches for his pocket.

I made it to half time with the score still at 1-0. Football is a game of two halves…

I got a goal soon after the break. I broke up yet another raid by Drenthe down my right side. (Note to self: must check out Drenthe at some point in Master League 2.0) He was out of position, and I lofted a delicious aerial through-ball over the top to Shimizu. The little fella’s jet-heeled boots left the Madrid defence trailing a long way behind. I was one-on-one with Casillas. Could I do it?

Yep, I could do it. Shimizu dinked the ball past the keeper. 1-1 on the night. 3-3 on aggregate. Madrid still had that one extra away goal. I needed another goal.

It didn’t look as if it was going to come. By the 80th minute, that awful feeling I mentioned earlier was a full-on conviction that this was it, the Treble was over, it was not meant to be, et cetera.

Duffy had come on for the exhausted Guimaraes, who had been chasing Drenthe up and down the pitch all night. I got the ball with Duffy near the halfway line, and went off on a little run toward Madrid’s net….

Goal! The magnificent Beerens strikes again. That’s about 20 goals for him in all competitions this season so far. At the point where Duffy breaks into the Madrid penalty area, I was a hair’s-breadth away from pressing Shoot, but thought better of it and passed to Beerens. I’m glad I did.

1-2 to me, and that’s how it ended. Real Madrid pressed ineffectually in the last few minutes. I wasn’t taking any chances. It was time to park a bus in in my penalty area. I pressed L2+Triangle to switch to my ultra-defensive 5-4-1, and kept it like that. The final whistle went. I was through.

I’ll play Barcelona in the final. Should be easy…

———–

In the League I’ve continued to win matches with scorelines like 6-3, 4-0, 3-1, 5-2, etc. I’m seven points clear with four games to play.

Another win or two will secure the title. A final goal difference of +100 - or more - should be achievable too.

I’m about to play two Cup Finals. Two wins in those games, and the Treble is mine.

This time tomorrow, one way or the other, it’ll all be over.

It finally happened. A bit sooner than I thought it would, but it happened.

100 league goals. After just 29 games of a 38-game season.

I don’t really feel any sense of achievement. In every PES since PES came into being, 100 goals in a Master League season was almost the stuff of fantasy - for me it was, anyway. I’ll say it again: I’m just an average player. I’m not a PES wunderkind.

I remember getting close to 100 goals in PES6. I was on 92 goals or thereabouts towards the end of one particularly successful ML season. I psyched myself up to get to the magic 100 mark in the last three or four matches - only for two of them to be 0-0 draws, and the other two to be 0-1 defeats. On 92 goals I stayed. But that was PES6.

There was no danger of missing out on 100 goals this season in PES2008. In fact it might even be harder not to score 100 goals, once you get bedded down in a Master League with a squad of good players.

The only thing left to aim for now on the goalscoring front is to get a final goal difference of +100 or more. Now that would be even more ridiculous. The frightening thing is, I’ll almost certainly do it.

At least I had a couple of thrilling matches in among all the goalfests. One match in particular stood out. It was against Portsmouth, away. They’ve been regular whipping boys for a few seasons now. I went into the game anticipating a straightforward 0-5 victory, or better.

It did not go according to plan.

Portsmouth got the early goal to go 1-0 up. Then I had Marchisio sent off. Then Portsmouth went 2-0 up.

I was distraught. Despite being ‘only’ 5 points ahead of Man Utd in the table, I’ve played PES for long enough to know what can happen in a League when results start getting a bit ’screwy’.

Muntari got me one back in the 80th minute. I was 2-1 down, with ten minutes left. I would settle for a point from this game. Could I do it?

Of course I could. I got the equaliser with Shimizu in the 85th minute. Then I got two more with Shimizu in the 89th and 90th minutes. I’d come from 2-0 down with ten men to win 2-4. It felt good, but…

Once the dust had settled, I felt less good about it. There was no way I should have been able to come back like that, even with the players in my squad.

Next I beat Helsingborgs 6-2. Two of my goals came from Guimaraes, my skilful Brazilian right-back. Both were fine finishes after mazy runs through the entire Helsingborgs team. Here’s the better of the two:

(At the point where the clip starts, Guimaraes had already gone past two Helsingborgs players by the halfway line.)

I’m never surprised to score goals like this in PES2008. I’ve said a lot about the difficulty level of this game. I’ve criticised it, carped about it, mumbled and grumbled about it. I won’t say any more now.

—————-

I’ve found out what comes after Team Popularity ‘A’ rank. I’ve gone up another level, to ‘S’.

That progress bar is still filling up after every game. Is there another level after this one? I wonder if I’ll have time to find out before this season and this Master League career both come to an end.