In Master League you often end up playing the same teams back-to-back in the League and in European groups. It’s one of the many consequences of the Master League world being so small. Master League is in urgent need of an overhaul. I think we need more than just four leagues with two divisions in each. We need about twenty leagues with four divisions each, in my opinion. It needs to be as close to the real world as possible. Yes, I’ll say it, it needs to be as close to FIFA’s Manager Mode setup as possible. I’d like to be able to play a Pro Evo career in that kind of wider footballing world.

Real Madrid are in my European Championships group. They’re also one of my main rivals in the league. They’re not a great team in my ML and never have been, but they’re still no pushovers. They can still give me a good game.

In our league encounter they took the lead, a little luckily. I equalised soon afterward (which is always nice), albeit rather luckily with a Schwarz header that first went down into the ground then looped up and over the keeper into the net. 1-1 it stayed from then on. I’d just accepted that it was going to end 1-1 when I had a chance with Schwarz. He was in the box and I was just about to pull the trigger when the CPU defender viciously scythed him down from behind. Not even Pro Evo could deny me such a clear-cut penalty, but the CPU defender got away with a yellow card. For me, that would have been red.

Andy Cole was my penalty kicker. I felt beforehand that I’d miss the penalty whoever took it, so I decided I might as well leave Andy Cole to carry the can. Penalties in PES have always been totally random. They have no actual skill element that I have ever been able to detect. If anybody out there believes otherwise—or, preferably, knows otherwise—then I’d love to hear from them. I did no more than flick the analogue stick toward the right of the net, and tap shoot. Andy Cole ran up and blasted the ball two yards over the crossbar, and the match ended 1-1.

Then Real Madrid beat me in the first game of our European Championship group. The match started pretty tamely, but I had Del Piero sent off for a nothing foul in midfield. The CPU player was miles from my goal with my entire defence in the way. My tackle with Del Piero was a slightly mistimed one from the side, the kind of tackle that’s a yellow card at most. But on this occasion it was a straight red card.

Despite the setback I took the lead. That often happens when I play with 10 men (and sometimes with less than 10 men). I play superbly and wonder how I can ever be beaten. But on this occasion, it was not to be. I admit to letting my concentration slip and allowing a soft equaliser to go in before half time. Then, in the second half, Real got their winner. I couldn’t come back, and thus I lost the opening group game. I hate doing that.

In the league I finally came up against Deportivo la Coruna. I’ve had a great start to the league season, and so have they. I beat them 3-2 with two good goals from Henry—his first for me—one of them a true poacher’s goal after a very strange short back-pass from a CPU defender to the goalkeeper.

For my second game in Europe I brought all my concentration to bear. Another defeat was unthinkable. I’m going for a Treble this season.

Benfica, another old ‘friend’ of mine from this ML career, were next. I scored early and hung on until the end to win 1-0. I had to really dig in and withstand some ridiculous pressure and manipulation of the game. I absolutely hate in PES2008 how your players are often forced to run on rails with the ball at their feet and carry the ball over the line for throw-ins and corners to the CPU. Before anyone mentions super-cancel, it doesn’t arrest the progress of my players’ running on rails. It’s a definite feature of the programming this year, just one of the myriad ways in which the AI is granted an advantage in times of trouble.

Never mind. It hadn’t cost me this time and I’d got the win I wanted. It makes the group table look a little healthier, although I hope that first-game defeat doesn’t come back to haunt me further down the line.

The end of season 2017 turned out to be more or less a carbon copy of the end of season 2016. After a pretty poor season for Coventry City it seemed that the team at the top of the table, the superb Valencia (one of the most fearsomely good AI teams that I’ve ever played against in PES), were going to streak away with the league title. I was scraping wins and scrambling around for draws and taking unexpected defeats. I trailed miserably in their wake. It seemed all over with about 5 games to go. But when it comes to the story of a Master League season, I’ve always found that the game has other ideas.

Sure enough, I picked up results in the last few games. Valencia dropped a ton of points almost for the first time all season, enabling me to get within striking distance before the final fixture. Yeah right, as they say. Hmmm, etc. Oh, well. There’s no need for me to be churlish. I’m playing a game, after all. I love the game, and I don’t have to play it. I could always play another game, or go and read a book (imagine that!), if it annoys me so much. Lately I’m really, really trying to see PES for what it is, not for what I wish it would be. I wish it was a little slower-paced (yes, like FIFA08). I wish its scripting wasn’t so blatant and in-your-face. But it’s still the franchise I fell in love with nearly ten years ago. Sure, it’s starting to look a little plump around the middle now, and its breasts are starting to sag. And… I won’t pursue this rather alarming metaphor any further. You get the idea.

The picture below shows the top of the table before the final game of the season.

So yet again, if I won the last game, I could win the league title. Yes, we really have been here before—too many times before. But there was one difference. A couple of them, actually.

Somehow, those two virtual also-rans of this Master League, Real Madrid and Barcelona, had kept up with myself and Valencia. Real had actually managed to overhaul us both and were sitting pretty on top of the table by goal difference. Four teams were within three points of each other. I spent a few minutes examining the table. It was interesting enough for me to want to do that. I don’t remember seeing many, or even any, tables like it through all the years. Four teams in with a shout!

I was in 3rd place, 3 points behind both Real and Valencia. I had to win my last game—against Deportivo—and hope that they both lost their last games. My goal difference was easily better than anybody else’s. (At least Real and Valencia weren’t playing one another; that really would have been a no-win situation for me.) I didn’t have to worry about Barcelona as long as I could get the win. All I had to do was win, and hope.

There was more than just the title at stake. Also at stake was second place. At the very worst I wanted to snatch that. I’d love to avoid pre-tournament qualifying for the European Cup next season. I fancied my chances of at least finishing second. Either Real or Valencia were bound to lose, I thought, allowing me to sneak into second on goal difference. The title was a long shot, but second was doable.

Perhaps predictably, Deportivo were immense against me in my game. They were almost at Valencia levels of superchargedom… I’ll cut to the chase: the final result was 2-2, and I was lucky to avoid defeat. It was 2-1 to Deportivo until about four minutes from time. Then I grabbed an equaliser—don’t ask me how—and went all-out for the win in the final seconds. But it wasn’t to be.

The picture below shows the final league table for season 2017…

As it turned out, the three other teams at the top all won their games. I’m amazed at how Real Madrid sneaked up from nowhere to take the title in convincing fashion. They really are as mediocre right now (in my Master League) as they have ever been. No matter. At least Valencia, my great rivals, were denied the crown. I’m more than a little annoyed about having to qualify for Europe next season—I hate the early-season fixture pile-up that it entails—but I’ll live with it.

4th place at the end of 2017 is a pretty poor showing considering the players at my disposal and the amount of time I’ve now spent playing PES2008. Not only did I fail to win the title, I failed to win either of the Cups. I end the season completely empty-handed. The trophy cupboard is bare. I’m very disappointed.

But in another way, I’m happy. It means that PES2008 still has depths to show me. I’m going to try to recover some of the lasting focus that I had a season or two ago. I’m also going to have a long look at my squad. I have too many players. Some of my talent on the bench is being stifled. I badly need a sensational left-sided AMF, for one thing. Season 2018 is next, and there’s still everything to play for.

So… it’s season 2017 of my ongoing Master League career with my very own Coventry City team in the ‘last-gen’ version of PES2008. Last season I won the Treble, largely thanks to a very kind CPU team obligingly letting me overhaul its eleven-point lead during the final quarter of the season. This season my aim was to win a Treble properly—i.e., get to the top of the league and stay there. I wanted to win the championship under my own steam.

So far it just hasn’t worked out. I started the season averagely, then I hit a poor spell, then I played okay for a game or two, then I was average again, and now I’m poor again. I’m languishing in the also-ran positions. Once again I find myself 10+ points behind the team at the top (Valencia again). The difference this season is that we haven’t even got to the mid-season negotiations yet. So there’s even more time for the CPU to transparently let me back into the title race…

I played most of the start of the season on the PSP version, then switched back to the PS2 version just a few days ago. It’s been pretty disastrous, really. I don’t know if I’ve failed to adjust back to using a full-size controller or what, but at times I’ve literally struggled to string two passes together. It’s peculiar, because the PSP version is reputed to be the harder of the two versions. (Apart from minor elements of the control scheme, the two versions are identical in terms of gameplay, but naturally the Internet—God love it—thinks differently.)

I had to let the league take care of itself and make sure I didn’t lose my grasp on the two Cups. In the Division 1 Cup I’d had a terrible first leg at my ground against Real Madrid that I lost 0-2. First legs at home don’t come much worse. Well, 0-3 or more would have been worse, but my point stands.

In the return leg I felt I had to score early. Only an early goal would settle me down and enable me to go on playing calmly and methodically in search of a second, equalising goal. If I didn’t score at least in the first half I’d probably get all anxious and aggressive, and end up crashing out of the Cup.

I got the early goal. I think it was in about the 20th minute. Kim Cyun Hi was the scorer. He has continued to show great form this season, but as an all-round striker there are others better than him for now. I do believe it’ll be two or three more seasons before I see the best of Kim. He’s still young and unformed. His skills are all pretty much there already, but he lacks stamina. When he’s fully fit and on form he’s already pretty sensational.

I got the second goal before half time, which was a bonus. That made it 2-2 overall, with neither team having the advantage on away goals. However, I was the away side this time, so another goal from me would effectively kill the game off. And I got it. It came in the middle of the second half—Kim Cyun Hi again, tapping in a square ball from Dos Santos on the edge of the box. 2-3 to me with three away goals meant I was virtually unassailable. Real Madrid would need to get two goals. They got one goal—of course they did—to make it 3-3 on aggregate, but couldn’t get the second. I went through on away goals.

I’m holding steady in the league. I’m back to winning ways at least. Although—typically—Valencia at the top have been winning as well, maintaining the 10-point distance between us. I’m absolutely confident that they’ll start losing as long as I keep winning. With just one more game-week before the mid-season negotiations, there are worse positions I could be in.