Season 2020 in my Master League career saw me get off to my best-ever start with eight wins from eight games. Then I drew a game, against Real Betis of all teams. Why can it never be a Valencia, a Barca, or a Real Madrid that brings swashbuckling winning runs to an end? Why does it always have to be the equivalent of Bolton Wanderers?

Sheesh. Anyway, I recovered from the draw to beat Mallorca 3-0 in my next game, albeit after a very cagey opening. And then the Division 1 Cup got underway. My opponents were Deportivo la Coruna—not as easy as I would have liked, but not all that hard either. The first leg was at home, just the way I like it. The strategy is always not to concede an away goal, and score as many as possible myself. Well, no goals at all were scored. It ended 0-0. That’ll make the second leg a bit more interesting, although I’m the strong favourite.

Back in the league I racked up more wins. I hope I’m not talking out of turn here, but I feel now that I’m unstoppable in the League Championship competition. I’ve never had that feeling before in PES2008 ML so far. I feel that I will win the League title every season from now on, and that no one and nothing can stop me.

The two Cups are a different matter. You can never legislate against the ‘one bad game’ syndrome, whether it’s your fault, or the CPU getting up to its shenanigans, or both. Thus, you can never bank on progressing in the Cups. In the League, after a certain stage of your acquaintance with the game (which I passed a season or two ago), you’re virtually guaranteed to win the title. Having the occasional bad game or two doesn’t matter so much in the league.

I hope these words don’t come back to haunt me. Actually, part of me hopes that they do come back to haunt me… Because if they do, it’ll mean there’s life in the League title race yet. It all remains to be seen.

In the European Cup, the group action got underway. I’m in a group with AC Milan, Galatasaray, and Livorno. I’ve met them all at various points of this career. Only the sight of Galatasaray troubles me even slightly. I think the other two teams are weak and I should beat them easily and qualify out of the group without any trouble at all. Wow—today I’m really setting myself up for a big fall in the future…

AC Milan were the first opponents, and I found them surprisingly a lot better than they were the last time I met them in Europe. It was tight for most of the match and looking like a 0-0. I think that in most of my seasons so far, that’s how it would have ended. But I’m made of slightly sterner stuff lately…

After a pretty dour 70 minutes I scored a lovely first-time, curling daisycutter with Giggs. It was a peculiar type of goal unlike anything I can remember scoring yet in PES2008. I had the ball with Dos Santos on the halfway line, and played a through-ball down the centre of the pitch, into Giggs’ path as he ran across from the left wing. The replay makes it look as if he has more space than there actually was—with three Milan defenders rapidly bearing down on Giggs, it was now or never. My first-time shot is heading wide, but deliciously curls back, around the keeper’s dive:

With Giggs’ right foot too. Magic. Sadly, I allowed Milan to score their equaliser direct from their kick-off. Well, I say ‘allowed’ with reservations: it’d be more accurate to say that I watched helplessly as a sole Milan striker squirmed through four of my defenders to snatch himself a criminally undeserved goal. I was annoyed—to say the least—and raised my game to get the winning goal that I felt justice demanded. Five minutes from time, I got it. Giggs was on target again, this time with his head from a Yamada cross. It was enough to win the first European group game 2-1. It’s always nice to start with 3 points.

One of the long-term problems with Master League is that there are too few teams playing in too few leagues. I’ll go on record (again) and say that I hold Master League to be the greatest game mode ever created in the greatest game series ever created (so far…); but, as the years go by, even I am beginning to notice a certain fraying at the edges.

Take my latest three games as a case in point. It’s season 2019 and I’m going for treble of League, Cup, and European Cup. I qualified for the knockout stages of the latter competition by the skin of my teeth, scraping through with a 1-0 win in the final group fixture.

My opponents in the quarter-final were none other than the best AI team in my Master league—Valencia. But they were also my next opponents in the league. And then I played them straight afterward in the second leg of the quarter final…

Three games in a row against Valencia. Yes, it happens in real life—Liverpool vs Arsenal last season springs to mind—but then it’s a rarity, not a commonplace as it is in the current PES Master League setup. It shouldn’t be long before I do yet another Top 10 List Of Things That’d Be Just Great In PES2009. A bigger, better Master League, with a dozen leagues and hundreds of teams, is currently one of my most-wanted items.

The first leg of the European Cup quarter-final was on Valencia’s turf, just the way I like it. It gives me the chance to score a few away goals and make the second leg a formality. That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, especially against Valencia (have I said how great they are in my ML yet?), it doesn’t always work out that way.

I took the lead. Quite early on in the first half, I scored this lovely goal with Giggs. It’s been a long while since I posted one of my beloved half-volleys on here. This one is worth it:

Perhaps the pitch-level view captures the essence of the goal a little better. I love how ruler-straight the ball flies:

I think I was entitled to get excited about that goal—and about going into a 0-1 lead away to Valencia in the European Cup quarter final. If I played it right, I could wrap up the tie (and arguably the tournament) right here in this match.

Sadly, I didn’t play it right. Valencia were in their best form. Whenever a CPU team really plays well, I can only complain about scripting if I want to be sulky and churlish (not a pretty combination). Valencia stormed back with three goals spread out over the rest of the match. I was still in the game at only 2-1 down right until the last ten minutes, when Valencia finally scored their third goal. I was disappointed, but at least I had that away goal. Sadly, it set up the worst possible scenario for me in the home leg. I’ll be trying for an early goal, and if I get it the CPU will see itself as losing the game (rather than winning the tie on aggregate), and God Mode will kick in automatically. Valencia playing on God Mode is one tough number.

In the league I no longer had an unbeaten run to protect, but I still had a healthy lead at the top of the table to defend. Valencia were as good—it seemed to me—as they’d just been in Europe. But maybe I was a little more focused here. I was very keen to increase the gap between us in the table. In the Europe game, I knew at the back of my mind that I had a whole second leg match to rescue things in, if need be. I didn’t have that luxury here. I won the league game 2-0 and it was pretty easy.

The second leg of the quarter final was also a lot easier. I won it 3-0, making the final aggregate score 4-3. When I took the lead the CPU predictably went into full-on God Mode overdrive, but I withstood the onslaught and snatched another goal before half time. That seemed to quieten things down. My third goal soon after the break more or less killed the game off. I came under some concerted pressure near the end, when a Valencia goal would have forced extra time. But the expected storm never came. I’m into the semi-final.

Yesterday a rumour appeared on WENB to the effect that PES2009 might—just might—be released on 17th October, which would be earlier than usual this year. We’re so used by now to the game appearing on a late Friday in October, that a release date of either 24/10 or 31/10 was pretty much assumed to be the case. Assumed by me, anyway. But if there’s any substance to the rumour, then we may well be looking at a UK release date of 17/10.

Last year, I started using GAME.co.uk for all my big pre-release pre-orders. I’d heard that they commonly sent out games in time to arrive at least a day early, and often two days early. Sure enough, I received FIFA08 from them two days before it landed on retail shelves. The same thing happened with PES2008.

The only time they’ve let me down was for Metal Gear Solid 4, which had the cheek to arrive on the actual release date, not before. Huh. I wasn’t impressed. But I’ll be using GAME again this year for PES, and hoping for early delivery again. I’m not on any kind of affiliate whatchamacallit thing with them. I’m just highly recommending them as a probable way to get the game early, is all. If history is any guide, and the release-date rumour is true, then I could have PES2009 as early as 15/10, which is (I’ve just counted) 106 days away. Hurrah! (Or how do the internet kids put it? Woo-hoo? Woot? Something like that.)

I hope the rumour’s true and PES2009 does come out early. If anything, I think Konami should move heaven and earth (and then move heaven some more) to release the game at the end of September, never mind October. By mid-to-late October, football game fans will have had several weeks to bed down and get all smoochy with EA’s hotly-anticipated FIFA09. The whole reason EA settled on September for its annual release was to beat PES to the shelves and rack up the sales before the real football game arrived in town. Well, times have changed, and I think Konami know it. So would a PES2009 release date of, say, October 3rd be too much to hope for? Probably.

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I’m still getting through the matches in my Master League career on PES2008. I’m at the start of season 2019 and top of the league on goal difference after 5 wins out of 5. My opponents in game 6 were my old enemy from the past, Valencia. I’m playing great and confidence is high. When you play PES with maximum confidence, I’ve noticed, almost nothing can get in your way. I hammered Valencia 3-0, taking particular pleasure in keeping a clean sheet.

One of my aims for this season is to concede less than 20 goals. I’ve been frustrated in recent seasons by the leakiness of my defence. I want to determine if it’s just me playing badly, or if the game absolutely must score some goals at certain times. The jury is still out on that one, really.

Six wins out of six, then, but I was still only top of the league on goal difference. Deportivo in second place had matched me win for win. They’ve got a nice little 100% record of their own going on there. My goal difference really is worth an extra point. It’s +23 after six games of a thirty-game season. Extrapolating to the end of the season, that’d leave me with a GD of +115. In theory. I’d love to get even half of that in practice.

This season I’ve rejigged my forward line, removing the talented Kim Cyun Hi from the starting role that he’d enjoyed for the past few years. What games he has played so far this season have been in place of Giggs whenever the latter has been unfit.

Playing a right-footed player on the left sometimes works, sometimes not. The best striker I’ve ever played with in PES was Dennis Bergkamp in PES5. He was a right-footer who ploughed a mean furrow on the left side of my front 3 across a dozen amazing seasons. (Some of that amazingness can be seen here and here.) Playing Kim Cyun Hi on the left up front seems to be his best position for me, crazily. He’s scored more goals for me so far this season than any other striker, and that’s even without playing in every game. I’m considering bringing Kim back at this position permanently, and moving Giggs back to midfield. I’ll see how the next few games unfold and then I’ll decide.

All things that have a beginning must come to an end. Winning runs in Pro Evo are no exception to this natural law, alas. Predictably, it wasn’t Barca or Real or any remotely ‘big’ team what dunnit. Real Mallorca held me to sticky 1-1 draw. I call it sticky because it was just one of those games where it seems your players run through treacle and are scared of the ball. I considered this game two points dropped, and so did the league table. Deportivo won their corresponding fixture to overtake me at the top. They won’t last long.