For the past week I’ve been playing my Master League career almost exclusively on the PSP. I hardly ever get much quality PlayStation3 time lately, what with work and various other things taking up so much time.

Since last week the Metal Gear Solid 4 disc has basically lived in my PS3. All of my sit-down, big console time has been spent sneaking around gorgeously-rendered locales, and being awestruck by the exquisite gameplay and immersive storyline of the PS3’s first real showstopper of a game. Konami, let’s have some more, please…

Playing PES2008 solely on the PSP is just fine by me. I love the PSP (am I the only one?), and I love PES2008 on the PSP. It’s a proper game of PES on a handheld console. I think it’s a great achievement that Konami and Team Seabass haven’t received the proper recognition for, for many reasons.

The main reason is that this viable, playable, fully-featured PES for the PSP came along shockingly LATE…. It was at least a year overdue—arguably two years. Also, the backlash against the next-gen consoles’ version of the game has shifted the focus away from the still-good ‘classic’ PES that’s available on PSP and PS2. I think it’ll take a pretty good PES2009 for Konami and Seabass to recover the ground they’ve lost with the fanbase.

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As I move into the last third of season 2018 it’s important to stay focused. I’m top of the league by nine points. My main league rivals, Valencia, are lurking in second place, waiting for a slip-up.

I played Sevilla and absolutely thrashed them. It’s quite rare for me to absolutely thrash any team. I was 5-0 up at half time, and wondered if I might be able to reach the fabled ten-goal margin of victory. (I never have on any PES—a 9-1 was my best, on the ghastly PS3 version of PES2008. *Shudder*)

The second half was slightly annoying because the AI turned to its old friend, God Mode, and I couldn’t keep hold of the ball for longer than a few seconds at a time. Yes, after a first half that I had completely dominated with excessive amounts of attacking and oodles of skilful play (if I may say so myself), suddenly those same players could neither pass nor kick nor head the ball a few yards to each other. Right. The AI naturally kept the funny business going until it got itself a goal, then relaxed long enough for me to grab another. The final score was 6-1 to me.

In the European Cup quarter final I met a stubborn old rival—Galatasaray. They held me 3-3 at home in the first leg, a torrid game in which I was 1-3 down by half time. I was just terrible. No excuses. Still, on the bright side it was only half time, and I had plenty of time to come back, and I did. I took the draw gratefully, worried about their three away goals but knowing that I could and should win the return leg easily. I’ve done it loads of time before. My game plan will be to score as early as possible and concede nothing at the back. We’ll see how that goes…

I played several more league games, winning some, drawing some. I’m still unbeaten all season—and I really want to hold onto that record until the end. I’m almost more motivated to accomplish an unbeaten season (it’d be my first since PES5) than I would have been about completing a Treble. Funny old game…

A noteworthy goal from these league games came from a cleared corner. I’ve done more than my fair share of moaning on this blog about PES2008’s many apparently scripted elements. One of those elements is the way that an AI clearance from your corner never seems to fall outside the box to one of your players (the kind of ball that always fall to the AI at the other end when you clear their corners).

Every rule has its exceptions, and here is one. This corner was knocked out to Bradley, who ran onto it and unleashed a cannonball of a shot that blasted through the penalty area and high into the net. I was proud of this one because instead of simply blasting in any old direction, I used the PSP’s little analogue nubbin to direct the ball high and to the left:

The season’s biggest game was upon me. Here in 2016, it’s about time I won a Treble—League, Cup, European Cup— and put the matter to rest once and for all. It’s a few seasons overdue. I think that in previous years I’d won a Treble by about 2014 at the latest. Maybe 2015 at a pinch.

I don’t think PES2008 (the PS2/PSP version) is a particularly hard PES. In some ways it’s among the easiest. But I did spend the first three months of this PES year on the PlayStation3 version. When I jumped ship to the so-called ‘last-gen’ version it took me some time to adapt to the classic gameplay style, which I’d clean forgotten after all the weeks of arcadey dribbling and regular cricket scorelines.

I’m absolutely flying in the two Cups. In the European Cup quarter-final I disposed of AC Milan with suspicious ease. After a 0-1 win away from home against Zaragoza in the first leg of the Division 1 Cup quarter-final, I’m nicely poised to go through to semi-final, although I’ll have to be careful in the return leg. So I’m not worried about the Cups.

But I think the League might now be beyond me. Even if PES itself, with all of its wondrous macro-scripting, does me a huge favour and makes Valencia drop points for fun, it’d be hard to overcome some of the extremely determined CPU teams that I’m playing week in, week out.

For example, just prior to the Valencia game I played Almela - Almela! - and I took an early lead. I was all over them, dominating possession, launching raid after raid on their goal. Try as I might I couldn’t score again—and of course they equalised with a few minutes left. I couldn’t get a winner in the last seconds. It was an expensive draw that left me 10 points behind the leaders with just eight games left.

Next up was Valencia themselves. Now this was really do or die. Win this game, and the deficit would be reduced to 7 points.

It was a strange game. I felt cheated. Yes, that’s a familiar refrain from me on this blog, but I’ve got to report what is actually happening to me out there and what I’m actually thinking and feeling about it, day by day, otherwise there’d be no point.

I took the lead and although I wasn’t exactly comfortable, I wasn’t struggling either. As I have mentioned before, Valencia are the best CPU team in the division by some distance. Barca and Real don’t even come close. It’s just one of the quirks of this Master League setup, I suppose. In ten seasons’ time, who knows how the land will lie? Things might be different in the future, but for now Valencia are the team to beat.

I resisted the inevitable onslaught, defending superbly—if I may say so myself. I haven’t mentioned him specifically for a long, long time, but Maldini is easily the best defender I have ever played with in PES2008, and arguably in PES full stop. He’s 25 now and fully developed. He’s effortlessly commanding in the air and accomplished on the ground. The only times he lets me down are for the CPU’s automatic goal corners, when he mysteriously finds his boots glued to the turf at just the wrong moment. However, all of my defenders suffer from that mystery ailment. So I can’t hold it against Maldini.

It was Maldini who was rooted to the spot—nailed to the ground!—when a Valencia corner came over in the 60th minute of the game. Their striker seemed to put his head through Maldini’s chest to nod the ball into the net. Great. I love it when that happens.

There was plenty of time left for me to get the winner. Anyway, by this stage I’m so used to the CPU teams automatically getting a goal at some point that I almost don’t notice it. I’d always assumed I’d need at least two goals to win this game, and so it proved.

When my second goal came, it was accompanied by a SHOUT. From me. I was glad I was nowhere out in public when this beauty went in:

Yes, it’s a PSP replay, taken with my mobile phone—the quality is thus doubly lacking. My apologies for that, but the essence of the goal can still be made out. It’s the furthest-out I’ve ever scored from, I think, in any PES. Bursting from his own half, Bradley—who else?!—shimmies past a couple of defenders. That was so unusual for me (I usually never dribble) that I thought I’d better try to cap it with a shot, from a thousand yards out or wherever I was. Here’s another view from pitch-level:

What I love about the goal isn’t just the distance of the strike. It’s the placement. It flies right into the postage-stamp corner, and the goalkeeper goes through that whole David Seaman-style ‘hopeless flapping’ animation (sorry, Dave, if you’re reading this. Nice hair, though).

It was the 75th minute. I think I was entitled to regard that goal as the winning goal. Right? Right? No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.

A few minutes later, Valencia had their equaliser; a few minutes after that, they scored again, through an own-goal from me—another ricocheting monstrosity that I could do nothing to prevent. I was 2-3 down in the 90th minute when I kicked off and just ran the ball forward with Giggs…

I was angry. More than angry, I WAS FURIOUS. This isn’t a game, I was thinking. It really is just a partly-interactive script. Seabass can go and…

I floated a cross over with Giggs. Andy Cole, on as a substitute in place of the disappointing Kim Cyun Hi (who’s just not doing it for me out there on the right), nodded the ball into the net. Moments later, the final whistle blew. 3-3 was the final score.

Ridiculous, frustrating, and insulting. That was my overall feeling about the game. Yes, I’d loved the 50-yard goal from Bradley—that should really have been the winner. It’s the kind of goal I love to score in PES more than any other kind of goal, and I’ll spend the rest of the year trying to replicate or exceed it. But yet again I found myself having to save the game, switch it off, and go and lie down in a darkened room…

As of now I am officially declaring the League title race over. It’s Valencia’s crown. I’ll be focusing my efforts now on finishing second and avoiding qualification for Europe next season. Damn stupid game.

It’s not all doom and gloom. After the disaster of being eliminated from the Division 1 Cup by Barcelona and losing my grip on the Treble, and then compounding this disaster by losing my first league game of the season to end my unbeaten run—the only saving grace of which was that Real Madrid, my closest league challengers, also lost their corresponding game—[deep intake of breath] it was time to shake off the disappointment and get back to business.

I still have a European Title and a League Title to win. So far it’s been a trophyless Master League career (the Division 2 title doesn’t really count). I’ve got to change that within the next few games.

The Treble isn’t the be-all and end-all of Master League. It’s just something to aim for, a kind of pilot star. To me Master League is all about the stories and experiences that are generated through the season-by-season playing of games, the steady build-up of a great squad, and the development of young players.

Just before the European Cup final I played a couple of league fixtures and won them both easily. Yes, concentration and focus are both back in town. I’d wobbled after the Barca game and allowed Osasuna to beat me while I was still replaying the Cup game in my head. I wasn’t playing in the here-and-now.

I put a stop to that and knuckled down to maintain my lead at the top of the table. Now, with just two league games left in season 2015, I’m 4 points clear of Real Madrid in second place. This title is mine to lose. My last two games are against Villarreal and Real Mallorca. One more win guarantees me the Championship, regardless of whatever Madrid do. I think I’m a certainty to beat one of those teams. Hopefully these won’t be infamous last words…

Before settling the league, there was the small matter of the European Championships, aka the Champions League. So far this competition has been all plain sailing. I whizzed through the group stage virtually unopposed. I hardly broke a sweat in dismissing my knockout opponents. And so to the Final.

It was against Valencia. I was in a state of high alert, guarding against any sign of complacency and loss of focus. Valencia, as I have written before, have consistently been the toughest team for me to beat domestically—far more so than Barcelona and Real Madrid. Valencia pipped me to the league title in season 2014 and have been a nusiance this season as well. Playing them in the European Cup final was not a happy prospect.

And it was a tight game, tighter than the proverbial nun’s crotch. (Poor old proverbial nun…) Heading past the 80th minute I was convinced it was going to extra time, and possibly to penalties. I hoped not. I hate extra time in PES. I only ever play ten-minute matches and if the CPU scores then there’s never really enough time to come back. Also, I loathe penalties in PES—always have done. More than any other aspect of the game, I feel completely helpless. There’s no rhyme or reason why some players will blast their kicks over the bar, or have them saved. There’s no skill involved. It really is five coin-tosses in a row, with the whole match awarded to whoever wins the most coin-tosses. At least FIFA tries to incorporate a skill element to their penalties. Hopefully this is something Konami and Seabass (curse every last one of them, and the horses they rode in on: damn them, damn them all to hell) are working on and will resolve for PES2009 and beyond.

But this match didn’t go to extra time or penalties. I had a throw-in on the right and threw it to Bradley. I ran him a little way across the pitch and, about 25 yards out, from a pretty acute angle that he’s never scored from before, I let a shot fly… It went in. 1-0 to me, and all I had to do was hold off Valencia for a few more game minutes. My very first PES2008 trophy was imminent!

I survived those last few minutes, and impatiently pressed START to get to the presentation ceremony and celebrations. I was playing this session on the PSP. I held the little screen very close to me, wanting to savour every moment. As I watched the blank LOADING screen I felt very excited. About thirty seconds passed. It was taking its time, this celebration cutscene, but that was the PSP for you—why didn’t Sony go with solid state cartridges, just this once? Another thirty seconds passed. Hmmm. I was getting worried. The UMD wasn’t making any noise. If it was still loading, as the screen claimed it was, surely it’d be grinding away back there? It was totally silent.

I’ll cut to the chase: I had to reset my PSP and then play the European Cup final against Valencia all over again. It was annoying, but at least if I lost I’d be fully entitled to reload and play it again. As it turned out I won the final again on my first attempt. The game was spookily similar to the first one, except this time the score was 1-1 at 80 minutes, and then I got my winner. Bradley scored it again, fittingly.

And that was that. I’ve won the European Championship. Now for the league.