PES Chronicles

Friday’s arrival of my custom Capuano shirt (pictured right, fresh out of the box) came with a burdensome responsibility. Yes, I did mainly get it as a bit  of a jape, but it’s also a solid keepsake of my PES2010 year—which is now nearing the 250-hour mark. That kind of time investment is not a trivial matter.

The Capuano shirt’s future is either in the back of a drawer somewhere, or displayed in a frame on a wall. I’ll have to see how I feel. But first, I felt that I had to wear it at least once whilst playing the game.

So I played an entire session of PES2010 while wearing the shirt. It only felt odd and embarrassing at first. Once the initial strangeness was out of the way, it actually felt quite normal. And it is normal. Totally normal.

Capuano himself, funnily enough, hasn’t really shone since I started making a fuss of him on the blog. He’s continued to grow, acquiring another point of OVR rating (94 now). I now play him mostly in his original position of left-back, where he’s totally accomplished. I only risk him in his newly-trained position of AMF when my other options are unavailable. I want Capuano to be a full AMF in a few seasons’ time, but for now I need him in defence.

So, how’s my form in season 15 of this turned-out-epic-again career? Pretty good, really. I’ve got all my focus back. It’s worth remembering that I’m still pursuing not only my first Treble, but my first Cups of any description. I’ve ‘only’ got the 4 league titles to show for all 15 seasons so far. It’s not good enough.

Here’s the league table after 23 matches—it’s not looking good for me this season, I have to say:

There’s still a long way to go, and we all know how charitable Master League leagues can be, but I fear the worst. My patchy early-season form may have left me totally out of title contention this season. I’m slowly fighting my way back up the table, but I still run into those ‘impossible’ games where I’m strangled to death and feel lucky if I scrape a draw.

I think my best chances of honours this season are in the Cups. I’m still in the D1 Cup, where I face a tricky second leg in the quarter-final against Manchester City. It was 0-0 in the first leg at their ground. Things are poised for a heartbreaker at my place. I’ll try not to let it happen.

I’ve also just got through to the semis of the Champions League. My opponents there will be… Barcelona.

I was annoyed, and intrigued, by the draw for the second round of this competition. It saw me paired against French opposition for the 5th season in succession. Given that there are 15 other teams in the 2nd round draw, and only two of them are French, what are the cumulative odds for it to happen season after season like this? There must be something fishy going on.

I almost forgot to mention: the mid-season transfer window came and went. I’m still poor and I couldn’t afford any new players. Apart from one. I got him from the Youth team. His name? Ceciu.

Ceciu! He’s 20 now, after languishing down there for a few seasons, but he has still managed to reach a rating of 70 OVR. I couldn’t resist.

As for my other Regen Defaulter, Castolo… Oh dear. The Second Coming is not going well. I’ll update fully on that front next time.

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.

—————–

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.