PES Chronicles

I’m glad I stuck with PES2009, because the game has opened up to me after I gave it the chance to. Sadly, I’m now seeing (and feeling) more and more the resemblance to PES2008, which isn’t good. I am enjoying PES2009 at the moment, but I enjoyed PES2008 for a few weeks last year, before it all went horribly wrong. I can’t help but worry the same thing will happen with PES2009. But we’ll see. For all the similarities to PES2008, there are some rewarding differences.

Whisper it, but PES2009 can play a slower game of football than FIFA09. The overall pace seems about the same to me. Your players even seem to enjoy a fraction longer on the ball in PES2009 than in FIFA09. Granted, this time enables the more arcadey dribbling style that PES is now notorious for; but it also enables a patient passing game, if that’s how you choose to play.

It’s a shame there’s considerably less freedom to do things with that time on the ball, but still—there’s a pretty deep PES engine under the bonnet. At this time of year every PES fan turns into an elderly aunt inspecting the newborn’s face for the first time. Who does PES2009 look like?! PES2008, most obviously—but going further back? At the moment I can’t shake the impression that PES2009 is a reskinned PES2. It just has that whole feel to it. When I won an International Cup I half-expected the credits to roll with We Are The Champions playing in the background. Anyone who ever liked PES2 should like this game. But after any amount of time enjoying FIFA09, PES2009 can feel like a step down.

As much as I’m enjoying PES2009 now, it still doesn’t compare to what I can get out of FIFA09. After I experienced these positive vibes from PES2009, I loaded up FIFA09 for a few games. Just to see.

And now I can feel one of those FIFA vs PES footballing metaphors coming on. Can’t. Resist…. Here goes. FIFA is up near the top of the table and boldly challenging for the title, while PES is just holding steady in mid-table.

I’m toying with several ideas of how to proceed. Whatever I do, it’ll be difficult. My favourite idea at the moment is one season on, one season off: a season of Master League followed by a season of Manager Mode. But what I want to do is play FIFA09 as much as I want right now, and come back to PES2009 only when I’m good and ready. I’ll probably end up doing that.

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Second session on Master League. I’ve played another eight or so games. There have been some surprises. Among the surprises is that the Default players are better this year. Not much better, but just enough to make the experience of playing with them slightly less gruelling. Another surprise is that I’m still in the D2 Cup. I usually get knocked out in the first round in my first season, but I made it through 2-1 on aggregate. That’s another sign that the Default crew are better in PES2009.

My 4-3-3 formation is a ludicrously attacking one for such a limited bunch of players. But after years of Master League, and thousands of matches, I don’t know how to play PES any other way. I briefly played with a 4-2-2-2 back in PES4 (I forget why now). I experimented with a 4-4-2 for a few games last year. But otherwise it’s been 4-3-3 all the way. Maybe that could be a special mission for the future: play using a different formation, and win the Treble.

After a promising start to the season—an almost unprecedented two wins and a draw in my opening three fixtures—I was riding high in 3rd place. Sadly, the old Default player rot quickly set in. Soon I had no one fit, and those who were fit couldn’t play. They felt more like the Default players from last year: the worst ever.

My divisional neighbours STOKE CITY won a narrow 1-0 victory. That’s where it all started going wrong. For the next 5 games I didn’t win. I drew one, and lost four. I scored about two goals. Willem II thumped me 3-0 along the way.

The league table doesn’t lie. That’s what football managers say on television and I believe them.

My wild early hope for promotion in season 1 would seem to be gone. I’d have to pick up some decent results between now and the mid-season negotiation period, then sign some good players, and have a storming second half of the season. Outside chance, but still possible.

I’ve played another five matches here in my first season in Master League on PES2008 on the PS3. I’m playing on Top Player difficulty. The Master League difficulty level is set to Very Hard. I’m also playing in a custom ‘Superleague’ made up of all the top club teams in the game (and Aston Villa).

I started the season pretty well. I actually won a game, which I wasn’t expecting to do. I only lost two games, and they were pretty close. Huh, I was thinking, PES2008? I’ll be back on PES5 before 2008 is even here…

Reality has set in. 5 hard defeats in a row. My players’ stamina levels from game to game have become so bad that they can barely walk with the ball, never mind run with it. Sprinting? The default players have never sprinted. Don’t make me laugh. But they at least used to waddle a bit faster than usual. Those days are gone. Sniff.

I lost the 5 games very badly. Stupid goals conceded far too easily, even taking into account the Default players’ skill-lessness. Any slender hopes I once had of maybe, possibly, challenging for promotion in my first season are firmly dashed. Even if I have a superb Negotiation Period (and I won’t), it won’t be enough to lift me back up the table.

The likes of Napoli, Sampdoria, and Sevilla are seriously good – far too good for Division 2. They’re all up there near the top, challenging for promotion, already a long way away from me.

Celtic dumped me out of the cup, 6-2 on aggregate. I was never in contention after the first leg at my ground ended 0-3. I briefly had some hope when I went 1-0 up in the second leg at their place, but that hope was quickly crushed as Celtic stormed back to go in at half-time 3-1. I grabbed a consolation goal towards the end.

It’s tempting to switch the match times to 5 minutes in order to speed up my progress through this tedious phase of my new Master League, but I can’t do that. There are two crimes I have never committed during several years of PES gaming. I have never reloaded a save in order to get a different result in any match. (Honestly.) And I have never played Master League games on anything other than 10-minute match lengths. (Some pre-season friendlies excepted.)

For me it’s now all about getting to the mid-season Negotiations, bringing in a couple of good players, and then having as good a second part of the season as possible. If I can position myself to have a great pre-season Negotiations after this one, I should – should - be able to challenge for promotion next season. Ah, but by then my House Rules will be in full swing…

The first big House Rule will start to affect me in this very season. During the mid-season Negotiations I plan to trim my squad to 28 players and keep it that way. At least until next season, when – depending on results, and how the game ‘feels’ – I might even bring the squad down to 25 players. The ultimately challenging squad size would be 20 players. That’s one for the far future, I think.

The House Rules will come into play as and when they are appropriate. There’s no point bringing them in now. The Default squad players are almost a House Rule of their very own.

I suppose it had to happen. After a better-than-expected start to my second Master League career in which I played 5, won 1, drew 2, and lost 2 (narrowly), those famous Default donkeys have run full tilt into two teams who ripped me apart without much effort at all.

Last time around, the first season of Master League was very difficult, and that was playing against a set of teams in an ordinary league setup. This time around, in a probably-doomed attempt to extend the longevity of PES2008, I’m playing in a custom league made up of all the best club teams in the game and Aston Villa…

Genoa 4-0 Singers FC

The Serie A middlemen put four goals past me in a game where I lost the plot completely after going 2-0 down. I had three players sent off before 60 minutes were on the clock. Griersen, Lieberman, and Burchet all saw red.

Sevilla 4-0 Singers FC

Sevilla also dished out an effortless thumping, at times almost literally walking the ball through my alleged defence. This time I managed to hold myself together on the sliding-tackles front, and only got one player sent off.

Taking two hefty defeats has pushed me down into a more familiar position in the table. I think this is how it’s going to be for the rest of the season, or at least until I get to the mid-season negotiations. They can’t come soon enough.

After seven games I’ve found that all of my players are fatigued all the time. It was not so last time, when I played on Normal. The higher Master League difficulty level seems to relate solely to stamina levels. I’ll be interested to see how my negotiations go this time.

These two torrid, awful, punishing matches have forcibly reminded me just what it means to play with the Default players. They simply cannot pull off the kinds of moves that I want them to pull off.

I shouldn’t expect Ximelez & co. to be able to carry the ball for very far, or shoot with power and accuracy from all sectors of the pitch, or pass the ball with aplomb, or do any of the things that I was used to doing with Schwarz & Beerens & co. It looks as though my ‘muscle memory’ of playing with a team of superstars has overtaken me at last. This is what I feared would happen.

How to combat it? Back to basics. Pass and move. Go ultra-defensive, ultra-cautious. Settle for 0-0 draws if that’s what I have to do.

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.