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

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

When I posted the Maldini screenshot last time, I was impressed by the quality of most of PES2008’s player likenesses. Only a few are either so vague or so grotesque that you cannot help thinking: eh? Ian Rush’s mugshot is one of the vague ones:

Eh? Let me get this straight. Iwam Russell is definitely Ian Rush, yes? No? Someone correct me if I’m wrong. I might be wrong. I’m often wrong.

Rushie has been a disappointment so far. It was only to be expected. 25 years old and coming out of the Unbelonging list, he’s had no development. He has no pace at all, and PES2008 is all about pace. Without pace, a striker needs a formidable array of other qualities to be a success in your team.

Schwarz is a prime example. He’s by no means quick, but his strength and shot power more than makes up for it. He got another hat-trick during a routine 6-0 thumping of Everton. (Thumping teams 6-0 is routine in PES2008. Hence the aura of disgruntlement that surrounds the game this year.) In several other League games it went all my way too.

The only really tough game of this period came against River Plate. They scored first, a tame goal from a corner, and I lost the plot. How dare the CPU score against me? I will NOT have it…

By half-time I was lucky not to be 0-3 down and down to 9 men.

I recovered my wits for the second half and started to play properly again. I got an equaliser. Then I got a penalty. Schwarz took it - and missed, sending the ball a long, long way over the bar.

Penalties in PES are rubbish. They have always been rubbish. They’re too random. There was no reason why Schwarz had suddenly decided to blast the ball over the bar. I wasn’t pressing up on the analogue stick. I had only tapped the shoot button.

Fortunately, I got a winner in open play a few minutes from the end.

Manchester United still haven’t lost a game all season - but they have drawn seven, and many of these have come during this period. I played them in a thrilling Championship six-pointer.

If only all matches in PES2008 were like this. Tension, skill, near-misses, last-ditch tackles, goal-line clearances - this match had everything. The only thing it lacked was a goal.

When Ronaldo burst past Guimaraes in the last minute and bore down on goal, I feared the worst, and prepared to sharpen my special Scripting pen. But the little Portugeezer flashed his shot wide of the post. The full-time whistle blew immediately. The final result was a fair 0-0.

I’m happy enough with the point. It keeps me three points clear at the top of the pile. That goal difference will come in handy if I inexplicably stop winning nearly every game. Looking at how far behind Chelsea are, it’s safe to say that the title is a two-horse race, and has been for some time.

I’ve scored 87 goals in 25 matches. There are 13 matches left. I’ll easily score 100 goals in the League this season, and then some. This is not a cause for satisfaction. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In the D1 Cup, I played Arsenal in the Quarter Final, and dispatched them with aplomb, 4-1 on aggregate. I’ll be up against Chelsea in the Semi Final.

In the European Cup, my Quarter Final opponents were Villarreal. The first leg was at my place, and I lost 0-1. They scored early. I had umpteen efforts on goal but couldn’t break through. I looked forward to the second leg with great excitement. Seriously - I was all aquiver… As expected, I overcame them comfortably, winning the tie 4-1 on aggregate. In the Semi Final, I will play Real Madrid.

So I was finding this game easy, was I? Well. Playing against West Ham, they mugged me straight from kick-off and went 1-0 up. No problem, I thought. I can still score one more than you. And I did. I won the game 2-1. Wow. This Master League really is turning out to be the proverbial walk in the park…

Er. Not yet it’s not.

The first murmurings of rebellion within the CPU ranks came from Tottenham in the Division 1 Cup. Having won this trophy with relative ease last season, I felt protective of it. I was, as they say, up for the cup.

The game was at their ground. I didn’t lose the game. It ended 0-0. But it was… peculiar. It felt as if the game was destined to be a 0-0. So many games in PES always seem to be pre-determined in some way. Scripted.

Next up were the mighty Chelsea. The only thing I remember about playing them last year was that my then first-choice goalkeeper, Kim U Don’t, chose to run away from the goal when faced with a Chelsea striker one-on-one.

This game was an eye-opener. PES2008 had woken up and noticed me winning virtually every game at a canter. This was the game where all of that had to end.

Chelsea started in ‘God Mode’ and stayed that way. They won 1-0. I picked up my first red card of the season - Delgado, for two yellow card offences.

Despite the relentless pressure from Chelsea I managed to keep them at bay for the most part, and somehow managed to finish the match with 60% possession. They had 6 shots all game. I had a massive 21 shots, half of which were on target. Half of those were shots that could and arguably should have resulted in goals. In this game, they either whistled over or were miraculously slapped wide by Cech.

Yes, the goalkeeper was world class, and this was a world class team I was up against, but… something smelt strongly of fish. We’ve all been there. You know what I’m talking about.

Next up were Blackburn - at home - and another rather turgid, apparently pre-determined game that ended 0-0. I was starting to get paranoid.

Finally, I was thrashed by Manchester United. I took the lead early on with a jammy goal from Schwarz. Whew, I thought. Back on an even keel. But it was all downhill from there on.

The magic threesome of Ronaldo and Tevez and Rooney had fire in their boots. I found it impossible to defend against Ronaldo’s quick feet on the ball in and around my box. Before the game, he had apparently glugged a Potion of Invinciblilty.

Whatever I did, Ronaldo did the opposite. If I stood off him, he ran around me. If I double-teamed him, he ran between my players as they stood like statues, ignoring any and every button-press. If I slide-tackled him, he evaded the tackle. There was little or nothing wrong with my timing, mostly. I swear. It seemed to be a case of the CPU blatantly gaining an advantage by using its foreknowledge of what button combos and directions I was pressing.

We’ve seen it before, to a lesser extent, in PES5 and PES6. In those games, the CPU used its foreknowledge to evade slide tackles in particular areas of the pitch - usually the wings. In PES2008, when it wants to, the CPU does it all the time all over the pitch. (So I rather bitterly think, anyway.)

The resulting 10/10 stellar match performance from Ronaldo may be a fair reflection of the Portugeezer’s sublime real-life skills, but is it fair to a human player in a computer game? Sniff. Maybe I’ll man-mark him next time.

After this batch of games, I’ve dropped to 4th in the league table. Despite my paranoid misgivings about the CPU shamelessly abusing its knowledge of what I planned to do, I feel slightly relieved. I was hoping that PES2008 still had a curveball to throw me. It looks like it has plenty.