PES Chronicles

After taking on Chelsea on the opening day and beating them comfortably, I had another Championship six-pointer against Manchester United. This one went against me.

I was the away side. It was 0-2 to me before half an hour was over. Then Man Yoo switched on their razzle-dazzle, and my players wilted like men of straw.

The manner of the defeat rocked me back on my heels even further than the setbacks in the European Cup. I had my full First XI out. The players were mainly fully-fit and in good form (orange and red arrows all round). I started well, sure: two good goals from Schwarz and Beerens. But then I was steamrollered in the second half.

In the next league match I ‘only’ managed to draw against Liverpool. I was looking for the win – pretty desperately looking for it – and nearly threw the point away whilst doing so. In PES2008, the CPU teams are at their most dangerous on the counter-attack. This is particularly true following a corner against them. Liverpool almost won the game several times in that way. At the end I felt lucky not to have lost badly.

I’ve fallen to my lowest league position for two seasons. The wheels haven’t come off my league campaign just yet. But they are wobbling slightly. It’s far too early to run a warm bath and break out the razor blades, but it’s affecting my confidence, and in turn my performances.

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The Treble, though, is still on. Just.

The second leg of the D1 Cup first round tie against Newcastle was the most amazing, incredible, nerve-wracking match I have yet played on PES2008.

I lost the first leg 2-3 at home, remember, and approached the second leg with a certain feeling of Doom. This feeling was not alleviated when Newcastle quickly went into a 2-0 lead, as I again panickily raced around the pitch trying to get myself five goals in the first ten minutes or something.

That would seem to have been that as far as the pesky Treble was concerned. It was all over. Wasn’t it?

No. Not quite yet. I got one back before half time. Beerens, my pre-season signing, has been pretty damn good for me so far. He’s got a couple of goals in the league. He played in this cup match, and I scored with him before half time to give me a slender hope. 2-1.

It was still 5-3 on aggregate to Newcastle. I needed two goals just to get to extra time.

In the second half I pulled out all the stops, and had chance after chance. Newcastle counter-attacked dangerously. I lived on the edge at the back as I threw everything forward. Alan Smith raced clear around the 60th minute. Bramble was nearby, just behind and to the side. I sprinted him across as best I could (‘Bramble’ and ’sprinting’ do not sit well together). I thought I had the angle and the positioning to execute a slide tackle. So I did. But I missed the ball and brought down Smith when he would have been clean through. Red card for Bramble, and I was down to ten men.

I still felt I had a chance. I’ve won games easily before with ten men. Never mind that this was Newcastle in the Cup. I could do it. I rejigged my formation. Instead of bringing off a striker for a defender, I rearranged the remaining three defenders into a classic back three and just went for it with a 3-3-3. I got my reward soon after with a goal from Andy Cole. 2-2! But there were only ten minutes of the game left…

Then I only went and made things even harder for myself by getting another player sent off. Bradley this time. I slid in on a Newcastle player in midfield as I was trying desperately to get the ball back, and the resulting foul was deemed a red card offence. Curse you Seabass!

I didn’t bother trying to rearrange my formation this time. To hell with it. 3-2-3 or bust.

By the 90th minute I had more or less given up. I was already preparing my brave face for this here blog. Then a loose ball broke to Beerens on the edge of the box and I took a shot… Goal.

2-3 to me, a mirror image of the first leg scoreline. With the last kick of the 90 minutes. Somehow, I had clawed my way back. Don’t ask me how. It felt more than a little odd at the time. If the game was scripted in my favour, so what. I was too busy punching the air. Bless you Seabass…

In extra time, I was more cautious with my play. I took off a striker and rearranged my defence into an orthodox back four. I pulled my two midfielders back as deep as they could go. I left my strikers up front, hoping to pick up scraps. I was by no means settling for a penalty shootout. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t concede again. I’d rather go out on penalties than go out by conceding a soft goal after all my efforts to get back into the tie.

Extra time was tough. It was a grim battle against fatigue and error, my players’ and my own (this was all taking place at 3 a.m. in the real world). Newcastle pressed constantly but somehow never quite got through. Whenever I got the ball I had few outlets up front or in midfield. The ball always came right back at me. I carved out a few opportunities but missed them all. So, fortunately, did Newcastle.

Penalties. I scored all five of mine. Newcastle missed one of theirs. I was through to the next round.

It felt good.

I know. The coin-toss of a penalty shootout happened to go my way instead of the CPU’s way. I’ve seen my players in penalty shootouts on PES blaze the ball high over the bar or at a post for no real reason too many times to believe that there was any actual skill involved on my part. I was just happy to be through.

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For the Treble to be still on, I had to win all three of my remaining games in the European Championships qualifying group. I’d lost two and drawn one of the opening ties. I was bottom of the group.

Here in stoppage time at the end of a somewhat overlong post (that Newcastle game was just epic), I’ll keep it short, sweet, and simple: I took on Marseille at home and trounced them 4-1. This was on the back of the D1 Cup result. I was on a high. I went into the Marseille game knowing I could and should and would win it easily. And I did.

The qualifying group table still makes for uncomfortable viewing. It’s very disappointing to be bottom with two games to go. But those points totals next to the teams’ names are bunching up nicely.

After starting season 2011 very well I was almost scared to start playing again. My usual schtick in PES2008 is to take one step forward and three steps back. Followed by another step or two back, before taking a step forward again. Followed by… you get the idea.

The next match was a pretty dour struggle against Portsmouth. 0-0 it ended, without much incident. The ball seemed to be stuck in the midfield for most of the game. I’d win possession (I’m good at winning possession now), then try to move forward but find that none of my usual moves were getting through. Was this the start of another of my fabled PES2008 Master League backstepping manoeuvres?

No. It wasn’t. I was up against Liverpool in the next game. They never seem to do well against me nowadays. In last season’s Cup Final I thoroughly battered them.

I bossed the game, taking an early lead – and then predictably lost a goal to some suspicious nonsense. 1-1, and I had a certain sinking feeling..

In the middle of the second half I was pressing hard for another goal. Then I got it. Shimizu in his new right-sided CF role has been fantastic for me this season. (He was rubbish when I played him there in seasons 2007 and 2008, but he was only about 6 years old at the time.) This was a classic PES finish:

There’s nothing like rifling one in from an angle across the keeper. These kinds of goals are true bread and butter strikes.

I bagged another goal before the end and ran out a 3-1 winner. It wasn’t very tough.

Sunderland were next. Sunderland: the team that has handed out so many painful beatings to me over the seasons that I’ve lost count of just how much I owe them.

I have a suspicion that the game automatically earmarks certain other club(s) at the start of a Master League as being your bogey team(s). Every game I play against either Galatasaray or Sunderland (my two bogey teams) seems characterised by intensity. That’s the only way I can describe it. The tackles are unflinching; the pace, electric.

This was another relatively dull game in the Portsmouth pattern. The fireworks of the Liverpool game were largely absent. I got a goal with Schwarz early in the second half. Immediately afterward, the Sunderland players turned on their customary Brazilian skills (!) and tried to dance past my defence, but I held firm. I was lucky on one or two occasions. The final whistle blew. Happy? Yes. Yes, I was happy.

Next up was Zagreb away. Things did not get off to a good start. Watch my goalkeeper, Friedel, in this clip:

Thanks for that, Brad. You and Kim U Don’t aren’t sharing a room on away trips ever again.

Okay, so my passing between defenders that gave the ball away was poor – but I had seen out of the corner of my eye this strange black-clad figure running up the pitch, and it distracted me. I wonder how far Friedel would have kept going if I hadn’t lost possession?

If I was now going to give Brad Friedel a permanent nickname along the lines of Kim U Don’t, there’s an obvious one: Bad Friedel. But I went on to win the game 4-1, so I’ll forgive him.

These results – three wins and a draw, with goals aplenty – have pushed me up to third in the table after nine games. Nosebleed territory.

If this is indicative of the season to come, I should be in with a chance at Europe.

I’m still not convinced, though. I still fully expect to find myself dragged back down into the relegation quagmire sooner or later.

Ahhh… I found that missing screenshot of my league position. It shows the state of play going into the last three games. It was tucked away in a sub-sub-folder on my PC along with photos of my best friend’s wedding two years ago. Go figure, as they say.

I’m 3 points clear of the relegation zone with three games to play. My goal difference has come down to a workable level. (See Celtic on the bottom with just three wins all season? Guess who they got two of those wins against. Go on, guess.)

This morning I played the critical last few games of the Division 1 League season and the Division 1 Cup Final. It was a very interesting session of play. I’ll post about the League separately later today. For now I want to concentrate on the Cup.

Last night I overcame Manchester United in the semis after a 0-0 draw at my ground and a 1-0 win at theirs. The goal I scored was notable for a couple of reasons. Here it is:

That’s the first goal of its kind that I have ever scored in any PES game. Really. I meant it when I said that I’m not a dribbler. The people who are complaining about these kinds of goals being too easy in next-gen PES2008 might have a point.

I’m still not capable (or really willing) to play like that all the time, so hopefully it won’t become a universal get-out-of-jail card for me. But it is a worry. If I can do it, I can only imagine what players who routinely used to do this in previous PES games must be doing. No wonder so many have said they’ve traded in their copies of PES2008 for FIFA08, or gone back to PES5 or PES6. Hmmm.

So it was Liverpool in the Final. Before starting the game, there was one important thing I had to do. I had to change my First XI. When I started this blog I was naive and never dreamed that it would attract commenters, or that those comments and suggestions would influence my decisions in playing the game. But I also never dreamed I would struggle with PES2008 to the extent that I have.

A consensus seemed to emerge over the past several days. Shore up the defence. Pick midfielders with better strength and body balance. Concentrate more on defending – you don’t have to go charging in. And lots more along those lines. Thanks, all.

I moved the defence upfield a notch or two, and brought the AMFs back a similar distance. By playing the defence deep and the AMFs too far ahead of the DMF, I was inviting the almost constant pressure I came under in most games.

Suzuki had to go from the CB position. Thinking back now I have no idea why I continued to play him while Felipe was sitting on the bench. Pride? Almost certainly.

After careful deliberation I decided I could afford no more than one show pony in the AMF slots. It had to be Shaw on the left. Djiba – poor, neglected Djiba with his high stamina and body balance (high compared to Shimizu, anyway) – came in on the right.

And as for the DMF slot… well, it finally had to be done: Donadel is retired to the bench and Muntari takes his place. Forgive me, Donadel. Don’t look at me like that. Cheer up – look what happened to you:

Up front, Chiesa on the right is another player I’ve probably stuck with for too long due to misplaced pride. Schwarz was relatively blunted out on the left, which is a position more suited to a nippy striker who can do a passable impression of a winger when called for. Poor old Schwarz lumbering down the wing… Let’s not dwell on the past, eh.

So, with my all-new, all-improved First XI, how was I going to get on – in the Cup Final first of all? An instant heavy defeat – requiring more work on the drawing board – or instant success?

Gulp. I won the D1 Cup Final, hammering Liverpool 4-0!

Look at those stats! Liverpool’s world-class stars barely had a kick of the ball. I think Kewell might have had a glancing header at one point. (When I was distracted by a car horn in the street outside. Otherwise it would never have happened.)

My players were like a team at last – a team with a proper spine: Felipe, Muntari, Djiba, Schwarz…

None of my goals were ‘all that’ – each one was crafted, though, with passing and movement (pass and move is how I like to play – no, how I love to play – PES). A header and a snapshot and a scramble and a deft finish from the edge of the box – those kinds of goals. Reyes, Schwarz, Djiba(!), and Reyes again were the scorers. (Leading me to ask myself yet more soul-searching questions about why I’ve left Reyes on the bench most of the season.)

And not a single yellow card.

After the game I was very, very happy to see my Team Ranking progress bar shoot up almost to the end. I’m about this far >-< from going up to rank C. Another couple of wins will do it.

It’d be great to get those wins in the final league games of the season. The Cup is all well and good, and the performance was amazing, but I’ve had these kinds of moments in PES2008 before. I’ve always got up only to fall down again. Would that happen this time? Only one way to find out…

A quick paragraph of ‘previously on Pro Evolution Soccer: The Chronicles’-type stuff is called for, I think. So. I’m in my first season in Division 1 on Master League in PES2008. I’m playing on Top Player difficulty. And it’s been a disaster so far. I’m 5th from bottom of the league with eight games to go. In eight long, happy years of PES gaming, I have never been in this kind of situation before. Not even remotely close to it. This definitely isn’t Kansas anymore.

There are four or five teams above me within 3 points. But two of the four teams below me are within 2 points. Only the bottom team, Celtic (who’ve had one win all season – against me), are guaranteed to be relegated right now. Everyone else can still escape the dropzone. No one is safe.

A run of results was needed to boost me away from the danger area.

I started with an epic 0-0 draw against Liverpool that I could and should have won comfortably. I was all over them for most of the game. I had 61% of possession. I had 16 shots on target to their 5. I hit the post twice during one attack. I hit the bar with a 40-yard shot from Guimaraes, who is suddenly developing into an accomplished all-round full-back in the Roberto Carlos mode. Albeit on the right, of course. It’s still early days for him yet, so we’ll see.

After Liverpool I played West Ham away. With the Hammers hovering not too far above me I knew that this was a big game - a six-pointer. I took the lead and held it until the 85th minute. (What is it with PES2008 and the 85th minute?) They had a corner that I knew they would score from no matter what I did. They scored. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps. That would seem to have been that. I kicked off in the 90th minute and raced downfield with Shaw, hoping for a dramatic last-minute winner. I shot, but it hit a defender and deflected wide… for a corner.

Two can play at the CPU’s sneaky game. I get lots of headed goals from corners in PES2008. I swung it over, high and hard. There was Mattsson, my second-choice CB, to head home from the edge of the six-yard box.

The final whistle went almost straight after the Hammers’ kickoff. A precious 2-1 victory for me.

Next up was a league game against Manchester United. I’ll be playing them three times within a few games, as they’re my semi-final opponents in the Division 1 Cup. But the Cup can go hang right now for all I care. I’d take 3 points here and now in the league. I have been struggling to pick up results against the poor teams in Division 1, never mind against the big boys. I was worried. That relegation zone has looked like a yawning chasm below me pretty much all season so far.

Pre-game I spent a minute or two in the Regulate Condition screen. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find it more effective at adjusting players’ form arrows (and less punishing on their stamina) than it was the last time I used it a couple of PESes ago. All thanks are due to Ziggy Bashmore’s excellent Master League guide for pointing me back in this direction.

So it was that I went out onto the pitch against Man Yoo with a team packed by red-arrowed supermen. Apparently…

I kicked off, knocked the ball back to my defence, played it around at the back for a bit, then passed through to Shimizu up front. Shimizu lost the ball. It skated clear to Ferdinand, who moved upfield. I gave chase with Shimizu and put in a sliding tackle that clipped Ferdinand’s heels, bringing him down for a free kick. Oh, and Shimizu got a straight red card, of course.

Shimizu headed for the dressing room, and I fumed. For the thousandth time, I’d had a red card for an offence that wouldn’t even be a yellow card most of the time in real life, anywhere in the world.

Never mind, I thought. I’ve ground out results with 10 men plenty of times in PES2008. A draw would be a good result from this game. I’d just have to tighten up and hang on for dear life. I didn’t make any substitutions. I moved Chiesa back to Shimizu’s position, and dragged the other two CFs into the centre, Schwarz slightly behind and to the left of Boyd (who was playing in place of the unfit Frutos).

Not very much more time had passed when Tevez burst through my centre, evaded several attempted challenges, and coolly slotted the ball past Friedel. Damn. Damn them all to hell. The maniacs…

I would be lucky to avoid a sound thrashing now, I thought. I got hold of the ball and kept it at the back for a bit, knocking it around. Wasting a bit of time, and seeing if the CPU would come out a bit, leaving a nice gap or two…

I played a hopeful L1+Triangle punt over Evra, looking for Chiesa in behind him. The ball didn’t get past Evra’s head – but the rebound did drop back to Guimaraes. I passed it first time, long, to Boyd standing about 30 yards out. I jinked past a defender, to my amazement. (I rarely jink. Jinking is just not me.) I found myself on the edge of the area, clean in on goal.

Instead of trying to blast it past the keeper, I did no more than tap the shoot button. The ball went under Van der Sar’s body into the net.

1-1, and I would have settled for that. But Man Utd were still a force in the game, and the best form of defence is attack, so… I attacked as much as I could. Playing with 10 men so often has made me pretty good at keep-ball.

So, after keeping the ball at the back for a few minutes, I rapidly passed upfield, and once again found Boyd more or less where he was before – standing just outside the box with the ball at his feet and the Man Utd goal in front of him. Another careful shot, and another goal for Boyd and for me. 2-1! This was amazing. (I should play with 11 men the way I play with 10 men. I see that now.)

But there was one problem. I had 10 men, I was playing Manchester United, and there were 40 minutes left to play in the match… Factor in the CPU’s notorious onslaught mode (or God mode, or aggro mode, or whatever name you call it), and I was in for some serious testing, right here, right now.

The onslaught started immediately from Man Utd’s kickoff, and lo, it was terrible. I survived through luck, of course, and some skill. Well-timed last-ditch sliding tackles (for once) and – most importantly – positional discipline. Every one of my players had to stay within 10 yards of their position. No dragging them across the pitch to chase down CPU players with the ball glued to their feet. I’d tap L1 and switch to another player nearby when that happened. It seemed to be working. It is especially important to keep your side-backs in their position, I have noticed. It’s too easy to let them wander up to the halfway line, or across to the CB positions.

Manchester United couldn’t get past me. But I knew by now that it was really only a matter a time before they did, even if it took a corner or free kick.

Then I conceded a corner. It was the 75th minute. This is it, I thought. This is the Man Utd goal. They are going to score, right now. I was already resigned to it.

However, I think I might have discovered how to defend PES2008 corners more effectively. Instead of positioning a defender at some notional sweet spot on the corner of the six-yard box (it always worked in PES5 and PES6), this time round it’s best to position your defenders in and around the opposition players, wherever they happen to be. You have to stand around them, crowd them out.

It takes some doing, as the game will only let you control at most two defenders before the corner comes in – and most often they’re the wrong defenders. But you can usually drag one or both of them into the box and stand them right on the toes of the other team’s key players. Using this method I have found that my corners/goals conceded ratio has come way down. But it is still a problem. The CPU still has a knack of getting that vital goal from corners when it needs it. Hence my worry right now in this big game.

But I needn’t have worried. Over came the corner. It was a high, vicious in-swinger. I got a head on it, and the ball dropped outside my area to Shaw. Every outfield player I had was behind Shaw. I had to go off on a run:

That was pretty satisfying, believe me.

One of the things that PES2008 has got right is that pacy players like Shaw can now outstrip other, slower players. I’d never have made it so far forward with Shaw in PES6 – the defenders would have simply caught up with me, regardless of the stats.

The game ended a few minutes later. Having played with 10 men for 85 minutes and been 0-1 down, it was one of my best performances ever.

Now I’ve just got to reproduce it in every game and I’ll be laughing.

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NB: A word for all those wanting to see either the usual grainy mobile phone photo of the current league table or (preferably) a clear text reproduction of it…

I was certain I took a photo of the league table right after the above Man Utd game, but as a certain wizened sci-fi character might say: Find it I cannot.

After playing a sequence of games – or an entire session – that I think will make a good blog post, I usually just jot down a quick note or two. The note I made after the above three games, for example, reads: 15th p32 w8 d10 l13 f30 a43 d-13 yell31 red21. And I use that to update the information in the sidebar. I also usually take a screenshot of the table, but on this occasion either I didn’t, or I’ve misplaced it somewhere somehow, or I’ve deleted it to make room for more on my phone.

However, I do have photos (plural) of the league tables taken after the even more critical games to follow, and will post them up in due course.

From season 2011 I think I’ll make a new section in the sidebar specifically for the league table. It’s a bit of an oversight not to have already done that, but I play PES first and blog about it second, and don’t ever want it to be the other way around.