It’s been a long old journey from then to now. Not as long as my journeys in previous PES years. (PES2008 will always suffer in comparison to its previous selves.) But it’s been long enough.

I sleepwalked through what was left of the League: West Ham 0, Coventry City 5. Andy Cole got 4 goals in this game.

Manchester United finally lost one, meaning that a win in my next fixture would seal the Championship title.

That next fixture was against my forthcoming D1 Cup Final opponents, Aston Villa. (This often happens in PES. Especially in the early stages of a season. With two-legged cup ties, sometimes you can end up playing the same opponents three times in a row.)

I beat Aston Villa 5-3, and took the title. Here’s Captain Schwarz leading the celebrations:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVYYWDWLYI&rel=1]

It was the easiest League title I have ever won on any instalment of PES. Still, it was my first title in PES2008. This season was memorable for many good reasons. It would be churlish of me to grumble any more now (there’s plenty of time left until PES2009 for that.)

The only thing left to go for in the League was a goal difference of +100 or more. (Schwarz, with 29 goals, was already the runaway Golden Boot winner.)

I beat Galatasaray 5-2. Orellano got a hat trick, playing in the centre CF slot in place of Schwarz, who has been blue- or grey-arrowed for almost every game lately.

The final league game was against Bolton. I went into it with a goal difference of +99. Easy, right?

Well, once again I tried too hard. I found myself 0-1 down and with just 9 players by the middle of the second half. No problem. This is PES2008, after all. I scored two late goals with my 9 men and won 2-1, taking me to a goal difference of exactly +100 in the final table.

My final goals scored tally was 136. One hundred and thirty-six. In one season. Ridiculous.

Here’s a full list of my team’s goal-scoring/assists performance this season:

(The discrepancy of 4 goals is made up for by CPU own goals, and one or two goals that Bramble got before I traded him mid-season.)

As can be inferred from the list, I’ve been less than dutiful in reporting just how effective Shimizu and Andy Cole have been for me up front this season. Some of my Schwarz-centric posts might have suggested that Coventry City was a one-man team. Not so.

Andy Cole in particular deserves a special mention. He’s another player I don’t think I’ve seen the best of, despite his 15 goals this season. Along with Beerens, I’ll be allowing myself to get him again next time around. Schwarz and Shimizu definitely won’t be allowed.

Final position: 1st (103 pts)
Won:33 Drew:4 Lost:1
Goals scored:136 Goals conceded:36 Goal difference:+100
Yellow cards: 34 Red cards: 6

———————-

The Division 1 Cup Final against Aston Villa was a peculiar game. Villa took the lead, I equalised. Villa equalised, I took the lead again. Then Villa took the lead. It was 3-2 to them going into half time. I was frustrated and more than a little tense. With the Treble apparently sitting on a plate begging to be eaten, I was in danger of throwing it away.

I shouldn’t have worried, though. I scored three goals in the second half and won the Cup 5-3 (the exact same score of my League title decider against Villa). The pick of the goals was this peach of a strike from Beerens:

I do love a goal that finds the postage stamp corner of the net. This one was achieved with a minimum of backlift, which always makes a player’s technique stats shine through.

I only got to play with Beerens for this one season. He’s still only 24. In my next Master League I’m banning myself from having all but a few players that I’ve had in this career. Beerens will be one of the exceptions.

——————–

After all of the fireworks in the League and D1 Cup, the ECC Final against Barcelona was relatively anti-climactic. I was nervous going into the game, and once again I conceded an early goal.

The amount of early goals conceded in big games is extremely dubious. It could be a result of being a little more uptight than usual, and playing in a withdrawn, over-careful manner; or it could just be PES’s pesky scripting; or it could be a mixture of the two. Or it could be something else. Coincidence, maybe. There sure are a lot of coincidences in PES2008…

I chose to man-mark Ronaldinho with Bradley in this game (I never usually bother with man-marking), and the buck-toothed wonderboy was pretty anonymous throughout, despite me rarely seeing Bradley within so much as 5 yards of him, all game.

I held firm against Barcelona’s persistent pressure. I got my equaliser with Bradley scuffing a shot over the line during a goal-mouth scramble.

I got the winner with Reyes toward the end. 2-1 to me. And that was that.

The Treble was in the bag. I had fought a war on three fronts throughout a long, long season, and been victorious on all of them.

——————-

It was difficult to progress in the Cups on one or two occasions. The absence of Italian clubs in Europe takes the gloss off winning the ECC. The League took its time to ripen and fall into my lap, thanks to Man Yoo’s peculiar reluctance to lose any of their games.

But it was all just too easy, in the final analysis.

The reasons why it was too easy have been gone over again and again (and again) here and on dozens of other PES-focused sites. Goalkeepers have emerged as the #1 reason why there are so many goals in next-gen PES2008. The keepers in the game are broken.

There is also the matter of player pace. In years gone by, your players’ pace and acceleration stats meant next to nothing. The slowest CPU team defender could catch the quickest human team player. We complained and griped and grumbled about it for so long that they finally caved in. The result? Every player is a potential Maradona. This is a tough one to criticise Seabass & co. for. What he/they should have done was to find a way to make CPU defensive AI a lot better.

But this is not the place for a PES2008 post-mortem. Not now.

There’s life in the old dog yet. I’ll say it again: the core PES gameplay of next-gen PES2008 is as good as it’s ever been. (In my opinion. Other opinions differ.)

—————–

Here’s the download link to my final saved game file: PS3.zip

WARNING! Transferring this game save to your PS3 will overwrite any ML save of your own that’s called Master League 03. Proceed with caution.

Any PS3-owner with a USB stick who’s curious to see my players and check out my season-by-season record is welcome to do so. Anyone who might want to pick up where I left off and play on is also welcome to do so.

The save file will place you in week 1 of negotiations at the end of season 2012, with the squad that won the Treble.

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NEXT on peschronicles: next-gen FIFA08 week.

I said I was going to do it. And now I’m going to go ahead and do it.

I could do with a break from PES2008 (familiarity breeds you-know-what). I have a lot of unfinished business to deal with in FIFA08.

PES vs. FIFA is an ongoing (and largely dull) debate.

Until this year (or arguably last year, with FIFA07) PES vs. FIFA was a no-brainer. PES was the thougtful, mature, simulation-oriented football game for mature gamers of all ages. FIFA was the arcadey, pass-pass-shoot game for kids of all ages. There was little or no argument to be had. PES all the way.

Well. In retrospect, PES-lovers can see that our unshakeable confidence in the franchise was unrealistic. Next-gen FIFA08 is the first serious challenger to PES ever.

Over the next seven days I’ll be talking about my progress with FIFA08. I’ll discuss its gameplay specifically in relation to the PES series and to PES2008 in particular. I’ll be treating FIFA08 as a game in its own right (of course), but it’s only natural that much of my attention will be through PES-tinted spectacles.

—————-

After that it’ll be back to Master League on PES2008. In a Superleague. Starting all over again with the Default players. I can’t wait.

Ahhh, Europe. Continent of style, culture - and regular, world-engulfing, armed conflicts (we’re long overdue the next one). Europe is also home to a couple of other remarkable things: the greatest club football teams on Earth, and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Struggling against Chelsea and Real Madrid in my quest for the PES2008 Treble, I found myself calling to mind one of Eurovision’s most memorable tunes.The nature of the battle just seemed so evocative somehow.

In the League, there is no struggle: it’s a question of when, not if I win it. The two Cups are more delicately poised, as only Cup competitions can be.

———-

After drawing 2-2 away against Chelsea in the first leg of the D1 Cup semi-final, I was happy enough. Two away goals are nothing to be sniffed at. I went into the return leg completely confident of victory. This is a dangerous mindset to be in. Sometimes, even PES2008 will creep up and mug you when you go into a match thinking you only have to turn up to win it. I’ve come a cropper once or twice.

But I approached the second leg in the right frame of mind: fully concentrated and with a grim purpose. Now that I’ve decided to restart Master League once this season is over, I’m even more focused on winning the Treble.

I beat Chelsea 3-0 at my ground, winning the semi final 5-2 on aggregate.

It was not as straightforward as it sounds. I had to wait a long time for my first goal. Chelsea probed and harried. I had little time on the ball, and created no clear-cut chances. Chelsea missed a couple of good opportunities. As half-time approached I felt myself getting tense. While it was 0-0 there was always the chance they’d sneak a goal. I wanted a goal for myself to give me some insurance.

Then I got it. Traore collected the ball in the centre of midfield. I went off on a run, evaded a couple of defenders, then let one rip. It struck the far post and bounced across the goal, dropping inside the net on the other side:

I exhaled with relief. Now I was certain of the win. I killed off the match with two more quick goals.

So I am through to the Division 1 Cup Final. There I will play… Aston Villa. How very exciting.

————-

In the second leg of the European Cup semi final I was a lot less confident of progress. In the first leg I’d allowed Real Madrid to score two away goals at my ground. I did get two goals of my own to make it 2-2, but it still meant I had to score at Real Madrid’s place or crash out of the tournament, and thus fail at the Treble, and thus be unhappy.

Real Madrid impressed me a lot in the first leg. They played probably the best that any CPU team has played against me in PES2008.

They started just as impressively in the second leg. Their left back, Drenthe, is not only big and strong (more like a CB than a SB), he is also very quick and very deadly with crosses. He raced down my wing after about ten minutes and hoisted a ball into the box. There was Raul to nod home, making it 1-0 to Madrid on the night.

Oh, crap.

Still, I’d known that I’d have to score at least once in this game to win it. Now I had to score at least twice. Pesky away goals. Who invented them?

As the half wore on it looked as if it wasn’t going to be my night. I just had that feeling. The feeling you get from a PES match when everything is an ordeal. Simple passes that go astray; shots that scream miles over the bar, or straight down the keeper’s throat; tackles that miss completely or leave the opposition player flat on the ground as the referee reaches for his pocket.

I made it to half time with the score still at 1-0. Football is a game of two halves…

I got a goal soon after the break. I broke up yet another raid by Drenthe down my right side. (Note to self: must check out Drenthe at some point in Master League 2.0) He was out of position, and I lofted a delicious aerial through-ball over the top to Shimizu. The little fella’s jet-heeled boots left the Madrid defence trailing a long way behind. I was one-on-one with Casillas. Could I do it?

Yep, I could do it. Shimizu dinked the ball past the keeper. 1-1 on the night. 3-3 on aggregate. Madrid still had that one extra away goal. I needed another goal.

It didn’t look as if it was going to come. By the 80th minute, that awful feeling I mentioned earlier was a full-on conviction that this was it, the Treble was over, it was not meant to be, et cetera.

Duffy had come on for the exhausted Guimaraes, who had been chasing Drenthe up and down the pitch all night. I got the ball with Duffy near the halfway line, and went off on a little run toward Madrid’s net….

Goal! The magnificent Beerens strikes again. That’s about 20 goals for him in all competitions this season so far. At the point where Duffy breaks into the Madrid penalty area, I was a hair’s-breadth away from pressing Shoot, but thought better of it and passed to Beerens. I’m glad I did.

1-2 to me, and that’s how it ended. Real Madrid pressed ineffectually in the last few minutes. I wasn’t taking any chances. It was time to park a bus in in my penalty area. I pressed L2+Triangle to switch to my ultra-defensive 5-4-1, and kept it like that. The final whistle went. I was through.

I’ll play Barcelona in the final. Should be easy…

———–

In the League I’ve continued to win matches with scorelines like 6-3, 4-0, 3-1, 5-2, etc. I’m seven points clear with four games to play.

Another win or two will secure the title. A final goal difference of +100 - or more - should be achievable too.

I’m about to play two Cup Finals. Two wins in those games, and the Treble is mine.

This time tomorrow, one way or the other, it’ll all be over.