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.

After shaking off the glee of winning the Division 1 Cup in style, it was back to the main business: surviving the drop back down to Division 2.

The feeling going into the last three games was uncomfortably like the feeling I used to have in April and May of every year when the real Coventry City were in the old English Division 1/Premier League. Every year we flirted with disaster, but somehow miraculously survived. It was an annual game of Russian Roulette that we eventually lost.

Was history about to reproduce itself in my PES2008 Master League? If so, how would I handle it? Could I even accept it? As this is a video game, I wouldn’t have to accept it.

I’ll make a confession here. If I got relegated, I could always reload an earlier save and play the game(s) again. I gave serious thought to how I would feel about that. There’d be nothing to stop me. I never play with the anti-cheat autosave function switched on - I usually don’t need to, as I never reload under any circumstances (system crashes and freezes excepted, of course; I’ve yet to have one on the PS3).

I’m the kind of gamer who thinks there’s no point in playing a game unless you can accept the outcome, whatever it is. Reloading in any game smacks to me of cheating - you’re just cheating yourself out of the whole experience. If gaming is to be more like life, then do-overs are not allowed. No one would ever know if I reloaded. But I would know, and that knowledge would be enough to spoil my entire ML career.

So I decided that I had to simply take the results, whatever happened. I took a deep breath and got down to business.

I don’t think I have ever been more focused on any match in PES than I was for the first of the three fixtures. It was against Bolton Wanderers. I was able to select most of the new improved First XI. Reyes was unfit, so I brought in Frutos and stuck him in the middle. Schwarz moved left. Bramble was also unfit for the game and was replaced by Mattsson, who has slowly matured into a really, really useful, and above all strong CB.

After kick-off, somehow I knew that I was going to be all right. PES is like that sometimes. Within a few seconds of the opening, you know from the way the CPU players are playing, and how your own players are playing, whether this game is likely to go your way or not. Call it PES paranoia, but that feeling most often steals over you when the game seems destined to go against you. When you get the opposite feeling, well, suddenly it’s like being Brazil.

Only ten minutes or so into the game, Schwarz and Frutos linked up:

A flood of relief. The way the league table was looking pre-game, I knew that winning this one could make me mathematically safe.

I played on, doing well just as in the Cup Final, snuffing out everything in the centre with Muntari and Felipe and Mattsson, and probing dangerously with my midfield and front threes. Djiba was immense. He really has been a revelation over the last couple of matches.

Just after half-time I scored another, making it 2-0 to me. Felipe got it from a corner. The game went on, with Bolton suddenly in God Mode. They didn’t get past me, but they were threatening to… My spider sense tingled. A CPU goal was in the wind. It’s the usual PES2008 scenario, unfortunately. The game just loves to set up an ‘exciting’ last ten minutes. The game’s programmers must think that last-minute equalisers and winners are the norm in football rather than the exception.

I needed a third goal to really kill off the game. Then I got it. I went on a mazy run with Djiba(!), but lost the ball in the penalty box as the keeper advanced. Chiesa, on as a substitute, picked up the loose ball. The keeper was off his line…

3-0 to me. How sweet it was. After the final whistle I hurried to check the league table.

I was almost safe. At the very bottom, Celtic and then Copenhagen were a long way behind - both teams were relegated a long time ago. Manchester City in 18th were on 33 points. I was on 38 points. I would have to lose both remaining games, and Man City would have to win theirs, to be relegated now. Not very likely, but you never knew.

Next up in the penultimate game of the season was Sunderland - my bogey team for the past four seasons. I’ve never beaten them or even had a good game against them. This time was no different. I went behind early on as Sunderland once again walked the ball through my defence. In trying my utmost to get back into the game, I went back to my bad old ways. I had Bramble and Traore sent off. The game finished 3-0 to Sunderland. I was furious - with myself, with Sunderland, with life.

But when I checked the table, I saw that Manchester City had lost. I was still 5 points clear of the dropzone. There was only one game left in the season. I was safe.

The final game of the season against Tottneham was anything but meaningless. Thanks to the Cup run I’ve seen my Team Ranking go from just-about-D to nearly-C… This affects what kinds of players you can bid for in negotiations. After the defeat to Sunderland it had slipped back a notch, but not too much. One more win, I thought…

I did win it. I won 2-0, and scored this goal with Djiba:

That was his first for the team. He’s the man of the moment all right.

My Team Ranking increased another notch, but is frustratingly still a hair’s-breadth short of the threshold leading to a ‘C’ rating. I’ve set up a couple of pre-season friendlies that will hopefully carry me over the line and make negotiations slightly easier.

So that was the end of the season. I finished in a reasonably healthy 14th position in the end. I survived to fight in Division 1 another day, but it was close for a long time there.

Season 2011 will be different, I think. Battling relegation has been intense and very Coventry City-like, but actually being relegated would have been no fun at all. And it could have happened.

They say (whoever they are) that you should never say ‘never again’. But I’ll say it anyway: never again.

Final Position: 14th (41 points)
Won: 10 Drew: 11 Lost: 17
Goals scored: 38 Goals conceded: 51 Goal difference: -13
Yellow Cards: 43 Red Cards: 31 (!)