There’s an age-old philosophy—perhaps it’s the only true philosophy, and everything else is derived from it—that goes something like: whatever a human being believes is reality is reality. That’s a very boiled-down version, but it’ll do for my purpose here. In PES terms, I went into the last 7 games of season 2013 probably needing to win almost all of them, and lose or draw no more than one or two, in order to keep hold of my top 6 place. Qualifying for Europe next season is everything to me right now. Missing out would be a crushing disappointment.

So I decided that my new PES reality was: win every game. And concede less goals. I was getting tired of 3-2 results. I wanted to win 1-0 or 2-0 for a change.

So I made that ambition my new reality. I used the techniques of contemporary personal development gurus. I played all seven games in one mammoth session, and spent some time leading up to it in visualising success, and imagining what and how I would feel post-success, and I drew a ten-point action plan on a whiteboard in multicoloured marker pens that I frowned at in concentration for an hour. That last part about the whiteboard and marker pens isn’t actually true. But the rest is. And the crazy thing is, it worked.

The short version of the end of season 2013 is that I won six of the seven games and drew the other. I scored an average of two goals per game and—just as importantly for me—never conceded more that one goal per game. I actually kept clean sheets for four consecutive games at one point, which is unheard-of for me in this PES2008 so far. And it was all to do with my ruling attitude during the games. So now I’ve decided to write a self-development book using PES2008 as the backbone of my system and become a guru and have five wives and lots of sex. Watch out for it in 2009.

This replay isn’t a stupendously great goal like the Dos Santos one that I lost on my knackered PC. But it is a significant goal, and those are the criteria for posting goal replays on this blog: they’ve got to be stupendous or significant, or ideally both. This long-range first-touch strike from Komol sealed my top 6 place in the penulitimate game of the season. It’s not a bad-looking goal in its own right either:

I’ve achieved my goal for the season. In season 2014 (where does all the time go?) I could, theoretically, win the Treble. Ah, but first I have to navigate past the pre-WEFA qualifying tournament. That’s got to be one of the toughest periods of games you can ever face in a Master League. Two fixtures every week for the first third of the season is a test even for the strongest squad, and mine isn’t the strongest squad. That can be remedied. I’ve got a massive surplus of points to spend—30,000—and it’s time to start spending them.

The last few days have been all Bradley, Bradley, Bradley. You’d think it’d be easier for me to just marry him or something. All of this fixation upon Bradley probably gives the impression that he is my Most Valuable Player. He may well be that in the future, but for now he is not. For now, Komol is my top player, the man whom I cannot do without.

Komol started coming good last season, when he scored my greatest PES2008 goal so far, and one of my top 5 PES goals ever.

I love to score long-range goals in PES. Best of all is when it’s a long-range goal that means something.

I hadn’t started at all well up here in Division 1. That’s par for the course, really, for me and Master League—I never get off to a flyer whenever I eventually go up to join the big boys. Every year I read about other PES Master League players getting promotion in season 1, winning the title in season 2, and securing the Treble in season 3—all whilst making love to a beautiful woman, presumably.

Can such stories be true? Or is there really a desperate cabal of 15-year-olds permanently deployed on the internet, persistently laying claim to unlikely gaming feats?

Perhaps there are players good enough at PES to ‘complete’ Master League within three seasons. I’d bet there are players good enough to do it with the Default squad. I’m emphatically not one of those players.

Against Deportivo la Coruna I was heading for yet another 0-0 scoreline. It would have left me with a record of W1 D4 L1 for the season. Not disgraceful. Not relegation form (yet). But hardly the kind of steady mid-table success that I had in mind, and which me and my squad are both now good enough to achieve, realistically.

0-0, then, but ahhhhh… In the 90th minute, Komol collected the ball out wide. And then it happened. One of the best, most satisfying long-rangers I’ve ever scored on PES2008, and yet again one of the finest goals I can remember scoring on any PES, ever.

With some goals, you just feel them. In the pit of your stomach, in the marrow of your bones. I could turn the pretension up to 11 here, but I’ll let the replay speak for itself:

Having three replay angles is a first for me on this blog. I really, really like the goal. Others may disagree, but my mind is made up. I love this goal and I want to marry it. I think I love the fact that it’s a crowded penalty box, and the flight of ball initially takes it up toward outer space before gravity (albeit the virtual, computer game kind) starts to do its job.

There was no time for Deportivo to come back. I picked up a crucial 1-0 win.

Scoring a really big, meaningful long-range goal can be among the most intensely joyful experiences that PES has to offer. Sure, under the same circumstances, stabbing the ball over the line from two yards out in the middle of a goalmouth scramble can be just as important. But is it as satisfying? No, never.

A while ago I promised that my goal replays would all be of truly remarkable or peculiar goals. Today I present a remarkable goal.

For anybody who can’t or won’t view the replay, the goal goes as follows: Komol, playing wide on the left up front, plays a one-two with Podolski in the middle. I hold the ball with Podolski for that fraction of a second needed for Komol to steal a yard on the defender. Then I play a long aerial through-ball back to Komol. The ball bounces once in front of Komol— and I half-volley it from 20 yards past the keeper into the net. A rocket.

Well, I like it. It’s the kind of goal that I love to score, and this is one of the best of its kind.

It was one of the few times during this PES year that I have performed an actual goal celebration in front of the screen. I waved the controller in my left hand and made a fist with my right hand and let out an involuntary shout. More like a roar, in fact. There was no one else in the house, but maybe the neighbours heard me. (”That weirdo next door’s playing his computer games again.”)

Maybe it’s not my greatest-ever PES goal. Off the top of my head I can think of several goals that have given me as much or more pleasure to score than this one.

I can think back all the way to ISS98 on the PlayStation1: a certain Michael Owenn (sic) once netted an arrow-straight screamer from all of 50 yards. Even now, almost a decade on, I can close my eyes and relive the exact moment it flew in—which is fortunate, as there were no replay saves in those days. I remember many a fine goal scored with Stoichkov in PES3, Bergkamp in PES5, a little winger called Malgani in PES6…

But this goal from Komol is the most recent one, and it’s on PES2008. For now, it’s my favourite.

Almost incidentally, I’m now 1st in Division 2. There are two games to go. I’m not just going for promotion now. It’s the Championship I’m after.