One agreeable side-effect of giving your ML team a stupid name: the opportunity for lots of cheesy puns. Expect that to be the first of many.

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When choosing a formation for Singers FC, have I learned the lessons of my previous Master League career?

All those weeks ago, I started with a 4-3-3 for the Default squad and got my arse royally kicked for a couple of seasons. Ziggy Bashmore’s ML guide recommends playing a 4-4-2 or even a 4-5-1 with the Defaults, as the players just can’t cope with anything more attacking that leaves them exposed in midfield.

Have I learned my lesson? Have I hell.

It’s a 4-3-3 all the way, and I’ll take the consequences. I cannot play with any other formation on PES. I am sticking with my strategy button alt formations, though, so I’ll always have the emergency 5-4-1 to fall back on. I think I’ll be falling back on it a lot.

Here’s the formation and First XI that I’m going with this time around - for what it’s worth…

I’m playing this ML on Very Hard difficulty. The players’ stamina is even worse from game to game than it was last time - and it was shockingly bad last time. Thus the team selection in this First XI is ridiculously provisional. Indeed, there’s little point in having a First XI when the team selection is not all about “who do I want to play?” but “who can I play?”

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Here’s how my first five games went:

Singers FC 0-0 Real Zaragoza

A game that I could and should have won. I created good chances and had 65% of possession. I found the Default players to be a lot better than the first time around. They’re still rubbish, but my added experience with PES2008 now enables me to make the most of what ability they do have.

Torino 1-0 Singers FC

Ouch. Another game where I dominated possession but conceded a soft goal and never got a look-in afterwards. Again, the Default players handled pretty well. I was worried that I’d try to play with them as if they were Schwarz et al, but for the moment I’m being very patient and disciplined.We’ll see how long that lasts.

Singers FC 3-1 Spartak Moscow

A great game, where I went 0-1 down but stormed back in the second half, scoring three without reply. Here’s my first two goals scored with Singers FC in this Master League:

Hardly classics. In fact, typical bread and butter goals - and typical PES2008 goals, also, with the Spartak keeper at glaring fault on both occasions. Hmmm. Where’s my copy of PES5 again? Oh, okay. There it is, safe and sound.

Singers FC 1-1 Espanyol

A hard game with an exhausted team against one of the league’s early pace-setters. I was happy with the draw.

Singers FC 0-2 Celtic

It had to happen. Celtic thrashed me at home. I say thrashed because a thrashing is what it was. It could have ended 0-5, easily. This was despite me again having the lion’s share of possession: 63%.

All of which leaves me in a respectable 15th position. I say respectable only because I was fully expecting to be rock bottom about now. If I can hold my discipline and grind out results, and if I’m in or around the mid-table area when mid-season negotiations arrive, and if I can pick up a couple of good players - then, who knows, a promotion challenge in my first season might be on the cards.

Plenty of other PES gamers have claimed they got promoted in their first ML seasons on Top Player with the Default squad, but I always assumed they were lying. We’ll see.

Ow. The latest results are in.

Coventry City 1-0 Everton
Galatasaray 2-0 Coventry City
Coventry City 1-2 Blackburn Rovers
Aston Villa 0-0 Coventry City

I beat Everton, but I don’t know how. The CPU was all over me. I got a nice glancing headed goal from Chiesa at a corner. After he scored he did his trademark aeroplane celebration - running in a dreamlike trance with his arms fully extended - for ages. It was mesmerising to watch. Really, it just goes on forever. I kept Everton at bay and picked up my first 3 points in the top flight. Now this, I thought, is a bit more like it.

The next few games were terrible for me. It was as if the Arsenal game had set the real tone and the Everton win was - whisper it - a scripted gift from the game. Couldn’t pass, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t defend.

I wasn’t pleased to come up against my old nemesis, Galatasaray, so quickly. They absolutely wiped the floor with me. Every Master League brings its bogey teams with it - PES5’s FC Bosphorus, anyone? - and Galatasaray are mine in this one.

And don’t talk to me about stamina… Due to fitness issues I have had to play several players out of position, despite having 2344 players in the squad. Donadel came on as a substitute in the defeat by Blackburn and had to play as a left-sided CF - there was literally no other choice. Everyone else was knackered. (He did set up my consolation goal in that game , though. Super Donadel!)

In the last of my five openers I played Aston Villa. Traditionally, they’re Coventry City’s big local rivals in the Midlands, although it has to be said that the rivalry is felt more keenly by Coventry’s fans than by Villa’s fans (they look to Birmingham City for all of their local rivalry needs).

So I was, as they say, up for it - and it was a good game, probably the best one of the five openers in terms of excitement and near-misses, despite the 0-0 outcome. I had the strange sensation that I was actually in control of the game. Maybe the scripting engine at the heart of PES2008 is programmed to take the day off - or to take it easy - occasionally.