Apart from that awful 1-8 defeat in the opening league game at the hands of Sparta Rotterdam, which I’m still shuddering about now, I’m actually doing quite well at the start of season 2011.

It’s my 5th season in Division 2 on last-gen PES2008 after several months spent playing the next-gen offering. The adjustment phase has taken a little longer than I thought it would.

My game is starting to come together—finally, after however many seasons it’s been. I’m defending well and conceding fewer goals. The Sparta game really was an anomaly—it was a wake-up call, if anything. I’m also scoring a few goals and getting results. But I’m not getting carried away. I’ve had false dawns before on this game. At the start of last season I thought I had things all worked out, and look what that got me: a miserable finish, my squad cut in half for financial reasons, and an eight-goal thrashing to boot.

I’ve won a couple more games and drawn another. I’m unbeaten in the league since that terrible opening fixture.

And now along comes the Division 2 Cup. I was drawn against Almeria.

I was very, very motivated for the Cup. A great cup run would do so much for my stuttering Master League career. Not just in financial terms—although that would be very welcome indeed; I really need to replenish my squad in the mid-season negotations—but also to get my team popularity rank up, so I can attract better players to my club.

The first leg against Almeria was at my place. I played well, using all the patience and skill I’ve learned over the past few games. I went 2-0 up and things stayed that way until the last minute.

When the CPU is behind in PES2008 on PSP/PS2, I’ve noticed that the merest brush against one of its players results in a free kick. Finally I have seen for myself just what people have been complaning about for the past five months. Next-gen PES2008 has its faults (boy does it have them), but I never felt that the CPU won cheap free kicks. Yes, it scored free kicks cheaply, but at least they were all awarded in the first place in a realistic, non-dodgy way.

An Almeria player lost the ball and one of my players ran off with it. The whistle blew for a CPU free kick. Of course it did. The free kick was about 30 yards out. What was going to happen next? Anyone?

The resulting free kick was the most perfectly-struck, perfectly-placed free kick in the history of football, real or virtual. It arrowed straight and true toward the top corner. At least my keeper, Lehmann, got a hand to it. But the rebound squirmed off to one side at a preposterous angle and speed—directly into the path of a following-up CPU player. 2-1, and the final whistle went. I was pretty disgusted. If the game had finished 2-0 to me at home, then the second leg would have been a formality. But we couldn’t have that, could we? So a nice little CPU away goal had to happen.

In the second leg, the CPU got its goal early and the game stayed that way despite me attacking almost constantly. Every shot flew wide, hit the post or crossbar, or was acrobatically saved.

1-0 to Almeria, 2-2 on aggregate. Almeria went through on away goals.

So it was bye-bye to the cup. I was almost literally open-mouthed at how blatant the scripting was over the two games. Seabass doesn’t even do us the courtesy of trying to conceal it any more.

Oh well. Now I can concentrate on the league.

In the first leg of the Division 2 Cup, I was (in my humblest opinion) unluckily beaten by my new bogey team, Valenciennes.

I was 1-0 up until near the end. It was so near the end, in fact, that they would have to score, and then immediately get the ball and score again, to beat me.

I remember taking a look at the game clock, congratulating myself on being 1-0 up, and thinking: Hah. You’ve only got time for two attacks, maximum. You’ll have to score right now, and then score again straight after, to win… And that’s exactly what happened. Doh.

I’ve been struggling with PES2008. The PSP/PS2 version is a lot different to the PS3 version that I’ve been playing for the past 5 months. They really are completely different games—and the next-gen version comes off worse in comparison.

I didn’t have much hope for the second leg of the tie. Playing at Valenciennes’ ground, I started out well enough. I passed well and had some quality possession. I didn’t do much with it, but I was keeping, ah, them (I’m not typing out ‘Valenciennes’ any more than I have to) quiet.

Then I went 1-0 down.

Oh, well. Never mind. Nothing had really changed. If I could score two goals I’d take it to extra time. I carried on playing the way I’d been playing, which was very well. At one point I got the ball in the centre of my own defence and started passing it around. And passing it around, and passing it around. I put together a ten-man passing move that would have culminated in my greatest-ever goal in PES—if the attempted finish, from Elmander, hadn’t flashed just wide of the far post.

Then I conceded another goal. I was 2-0 down on the day, and 4-1 down on aggregate.

Hmmm. Well. All I needed were three goals, three away goals, and I’d go through. It wasn’t even half-time yet. This was totally feasible

Before half time came I was 3-0 down.

It was all over. But Fate decided to lend me a hand—or it tried to. I was playing this match on the PSP during my lunch break at work. I went to put my PSP down on the seat next to me while I reached forward to get my sandwich from the table. However, I tried to do both things at once, and ended up dropping my PSP on the floor. It fell about a foot, I’d say, and clattered face-down on the hard linoleum (Eh? Linoleum? Surely not—do I work in the 1950s or something? It was a hard floor. I have no idea what was covering it.)

No real damage was done. The battery compartment popped open, and snapped shut again without a problem. However…. The PSP reset itself. The 3-0 scoreline was no more! I could reload from my last save, pre-game, and play the whole match again from the start.

No, I didn’t do it on purpose. And anyway: I lost the second attempt 4-0, with a performance that was even worse than the first…

Things are not going well. I also lost the next league game. Then the mid-season negotiations came. I put all my remaining Default players on the transfer market. The CPU came in to buy Valeny, and offered me a really great DMF/CMF/SMF/AMF called Ayhan Akman in part-exchange for Ceciu. I took the CPU’s virtual hand off.

I couldn’t buy anyone else who was good. To be honest, I didn’t try very hard. I think that I’ve got a good squad and an adequate First XI. I can wait until the end of the season to pick up some more players.

It’s the Division 2 Cup Final and I’m playing Sampdoria. I think I’ve only won the D2 Cup once or twice in all the however-many-years-it’s-been that I’ve played the PES Master League game mode.

This is the biggest game of my season and of my Singers FC career so far. I want to win the Cup not just for its own sake but also to boost my team ranking.

Currently, I’m ranked ‘D’. In PES2008’s Master League, the quality of the new players you can sign is directly related to your team ranking. Winning the cup should send me up to rank ‘C’ and enable a good pre-season with better players wanting to sign for me, which in turn should lead to a good season 2009, when I really want to get promoted and see what life is like in Division 1 of this Superleague.

After loading, the screen cleared and I pressed through the entrance scenes straight to the kick-off. I was happy to see that I was wearing my black away kit. Sampdoria were in their traditional blue and white.

After a few minutes’ play I noticed I was at the Bernebeu stadium—thus, there was frequent slowdown when the screen was packed with players at either end of the pitch. I immediately moved slowdown to the top of my list of Things To Moan About If I Lose.

A great start is a must in a big game against a good team in PES2008. And I got it.

Matuzalem, playing at his usual DMF position in my team, bagged himself what I call a classic DMF goal. It wasn’t a great goal, but it was typical of the kinds of runs and shots that I always try to go on with DMFs in my formation. In a 4-3-3 with a lone DMF, the DMF can often get the ball in and around the centre circle, then run straight with it for a little way (or for a long way) before unleashing the shot. The resulting goals can be amongst the most memorable and spectacular in the game, in my experience.

In next-gen PES2008 I’ve found that these DMF goals are slightly harder to come by, despite the game’s dribbling being easier overall, even for less skilled players. It should be easier to work the space and get the shot away, but it’s not. I think this has a lot to do with shooting being less powerful in next-gen PES2008 version than in previous last-gen versions. Also, I’ve rarely had a DMF with the precious Middle Shooting ability, which certainly helps. I’ll be looking out for the likes of Prieto and Mathieu at the end of this season, oh yes…

I went 2-0 up very quickly, knocking the ball around and exploiting my stretched-out front line very well. I was in effortless control of the game. This was too easy…

Things started to get a little screwy. The auto-catchup feature that I was whining about yesterday kicked in—boy did it kick in. I went from controlling the game to being controlled by the game, no question.

Sampdoria got a goal back, and the auto-catchup effect seemed to dwindle a little. I scored another—a Jackson header from a corner. Sampdoria got another goal back, but then I scored a fine mid-range goal with Gatti (on for Matuzalem) towards the end. There was, of course, time for Sampdoria to score yet another before the final whistle blew, but it was too late for them. I’d won the Cup.

Here are all seven goals from the match, from both teams, in the order that they were scored:

Final score: Singers FC 4-3 Sampdoria.

I was awarded a points bonus of 3000 for the win (points bonuses ftw…) and—perhaps more importantly—my Team Ranking shot up to ‘C’.

With just a handful of games left in season 2008, it’s time to start preparing myself for a proper season next season. One where I approach every league game as if it’s a Cup Final, and get myself promoted to join the really big boys of Superleague Division 1. To achieve this, I think I am going to need about four really great players.