Ahhh… I found that missing screenshot of my league position. It shows the state of play going into the last three games. It was tucked away in a sub-sub-folder on my PC along with photos of my best friend’s wedding two years ago. Go figure, as they say.

I’m 3 points clear of the relegation zone with three games to play. My goal difference has come down to a workable level. (See Celtic on the bottom with just three wins all season? Guess who they got two of those wins against. Go on, guess.)

This morning I played the critical last few games of the Division 1 League season and the Division 1 Cup Final. It was a very interesting session of play. I’ll post about the League separately later today. For now I want to concentrate on the Cup.

Last night I overcame Manchester United in the semis after a 0-0 draw at my ground and a 1-0 win at theirs. The goal I scored was notable for a couple of reasons. Here it is:

That’s the first goal of its kind that I have ever scored in any PES game. Really. I meant it when I said that I’m not a dribbler. The people who are complaining about these kinds of goals being too easy in next-gen PES2008 might have a point.

I’m still not capable (or really willing) to play like that all the time, so hopefully it won’t become a universal get-out-of-jail card for me. But it is a worry. If I can do it, I can only imagine what players who routinely used to do this in previous PES games must be doing. No wonder so many have said they’ve traded in their copies of PES2008 for FIFA08, or gone back to PES5 or PES6. Hmmm.

So it was Liverpool in the Final. Before starting the game, there was one important thing I had to do. I had to change my First XI. When I started this blog I was naive and never dreamed that it would attract commenters, or that those comments and suggestions would influence my decisions in playing the game. But I also never dreamed I would struggle with PES2008 to the extent that I have.

A consensus seemed to emerge over the past several days. Shore up the defence. Pick midfielders with better strength and body balance. Concentrate more on defending - you don’t have to go charging in. And lots more along those lines. Thanks, all.

I moved the defence upfield a notch or two, and brought the AMFs back a similar distance. By playing the defence deep and the AMFs too far ahead of the DMF, I was inviting the almost constant pressure I came under in most games.

Suzuki had to go from the CB position. Thinking back now I have no idea why I continued to play him while Felipe was sitting on the bench. Pride? Almost certainly.

After careful deliberation I decided I could afford no more than one show pony in the AMF slots. It had to be Shaw on the left. Djiba - poor, neglected Djiba with his high stamina and body balance (high compared to Shimizu, anyway) - came in on the right.

And as for the DMF slot… well, it finally had to be done: Donadel is retired to the bench and Muntari takes his place. Forgive me, Donadel. Don’t look at me like that. Cheer up - look what happened to you:

Up front, Chiesa on the right is another player I’ve probably stuck with for too long due to misplaced pride. Schwarz was relatively blunted out on the left, which is a position more suited to a nippy striker who can do a passable impression of a winger when called for. Poor old Schwarz lumbering down the wing… Let’s not dwell on the past, eh.

So, with my all-new, all-improved First XI, how was I going to get on - in the Cup Final first of all? An instant heavy defeat - requiring more work on the drawing board - or instant success?

Gulp. I won the D1 Cup Final, hammering Liverpool 4-0!

Look at those stats! Liverpool’s world-class stars barely had a kick of the ball. I think Kewell might have had a glancing header at one point. (When I was distracted by a car horn in the street outside. Otherwise it would never have happened.)

My players were like a team at last - a team with a proper spine: Felipe, Muntari, Djiba, Schwarz…

None of my goals were ‘all that’ - each one was crafted, though, with passing and movement (pass and move is how I like to play - no, how I love to play - PES). A header and a snapshot and a scramble and a deft finish from the edge of the box - those kinds of goals. Reyes, Schwarz, Djiba(!), and Reyes again were the scorers. (Leading me to ask myself yet more soul-searching questions about why I’ve left Reyes on the bench most of the season.)

And not a single yellow card.

After the game I was very, very happy to see my Team Ranking progress bar shoot up almost to the end. I’m about this far >-< from going up to rank C. Another couple of wins will do it.

It’d be great to get those wins in the final league games of the season. The Cup is all well and good, and the performance was amazing, but I’ve had these kinds of moments in PES2008 before. I’ve always got up only to fall down again. Would that happen this time? Only one way to find out…

Two draws and a defeat heading into the 2010 mid-season negotiations leaves me still perilously close to the drop zone. I need better players urgently. It would make a hell of a difference. I took a quick break to play the first few games of an International Tournament with the same formation as my ML team but with international-class players, and noticed the difference immediately. I could actually defend, for one thing. Scoring goals isn’t really my problem in Master League.

Needing and wanting better players is one thing; getting them is quite another.

Yet again I’m seriously hampered by my team ranking. My ranking is ‘D’. It’s been ‘D’ since the start. What this means is that I cannot even place bids for very good players. REJECTED is the word I see eight times out of ten after asking a club’s permission to negotiate.

A DMF with the Middle Shooting ability is #1 on the wish-list this time around. Nothing else matters. Donadel is still doing fine - not great as in the latter part of last season, but fine. Good enough. What he lacks is real bite in the tackle, and anything like a reliable pair of shooting boots.

I went for and got MUNTARI (traded for El Moubarki+5000 points).

I considered putting him straight into the First XI in place of Donadel. But it’s weird… I couldn’t do it. Muntari is the better player in almost every respect (not least his shooting), but Donadel did so much for my team last season that he has become like a talisman to me. And get this: if I dropped Donadel I’d feel that I would be betraying him. In other words I have formed a sentimental attachment to a virtual football player in a computer game. They do academic studies about this kind of thing.

ORELLANO is a famous old PES name.

I picked him up from the Youth list. He was a moody so-and-so in PES6 and wouldn’t come to me until he was about 26, despite just hanging around in the Unbelongings for season after season.

BRADLEY is another fresh face from the Youth list - a CMF/SMF with Middle Shooting. It’s called Shooting from Distance in the search menus but good old Middle Shooting in all other menus. Sigh.

And finally I got some geezer called DJIBA, another CMF/SMF player with Middle Shooting packed in his boots.

Amazingly I was able to trade Burchet+2000 points for him. Djiba’s not really very good (hence the low points price in the exchange), but he’ll be useful for trading up at another level if he doesn’t work out.

With the departure of El Moubarki and Burchet, I’m left with just three of the original Default squad: Ivarov, Stein and Huylens.

Ivarov plays in the odd game when Friedel and Kim U Don’t are both unfit, and he does well enough for me to keep him on at least until the end of this season. Stein will be good exchange fodder in the future. And Huylens is retiring at the end of this campaign.

I’m worried again that I might have wasted the mid-season negotiations. Of the four newcomers, only Muntari is likely to be of immediate use.

It’s usual for me to struggle in my first top-flight season, but this year I’m struggling slightly more than usual. I want to get some clear blue water between me and that relegation zone as soon as possible.

Finally, finally. Pardon the exclamation mark up there. I was just so excited. Here is Donadel’s first goal for Coventry City:

I had to wait almost a full season for it, but it was worth it.

Apart from this high point and the ongoing Cup run, my league form is still poor. I’ve hit the doldrums again in the run-up to the mid-season negotiations. A string of draws and one defeat. If this keeps up I might find myself dragged down into the relegation dogfight. Now that would be a first.

I’m actually feeling pretty fed-up with PES2008 right now.

For one thing, I’m suddenly seeing way more slowdown.

In the match at Galatasaray earlier this season, the action slowed to a crawl every time the ball was at either end of the pitch. The same thing happened against Blackburn Rovers at their ground.

For another thing, the CPU teams this year are majorly annoying. They’ve been annoying for a couple of years, but this year the annoying is turned up to 11.

PES2008, more than any other PES before it, uses its foreknowledge of what button(s) you have just pressed to give the CPU team an advantage. In PES5 and PES6, it used the knowledge to avoid your sliding tackles on the wings but rarely anywhere else. Now, it uses that knowledge all over the park, and can sidestep or hurdle any and every sliding tackle with ease. And it will do this multiple times within seconds. For example:

Yes, that’s absolutely awful defending from me, isn’t it? But it looks worse than it is. The camera angle doesn’t help - at least one of those four attempted tackles should have stopped the other player. The above clip is an example of what the CPU players do a lot more in PES2008 than they ever did before — they turn into untouchable supermen. After the CPU player evaded the first two I kind of knew what was coming.

Am I feeling disillusioned by PES, or by PES2008 in particular? Is the hurricane of fan dismay and negative press affecting my judgement? Possibly.