In Master League you often end up playing the same teams back-to-back in the League and in European groups. It’s one of the many consequences of the Master League world being so small. Master League is in urgent need of an overhaul. I think we need more than just four leagues with two divisions in each. We need about twenty leagues with four divisions each, in my opinion. It needs to be as close to the real world as possible. Yes, I’ll say it, it needs to be as close to FIFA’s Manager Mode setup as possible. I’d like to be able to play a Pro Evo career in that kind of wider footballing world.

Real Madrid are in my European Championships group. They’re also one of my main rivals in the league. They’re not a great team in my ML and never have been, but they’re still no pushovers. They can still give me a good game.

In our league encounter they took the lead, a little luckily. I equalised soon afterward (which is always nice), albeit rather luckily with a Schwarz header that first went down into the ground then looped up and over the keeper into the net. 1-1 it stayed from then on. I’d just accepted that it was going to end 1-1 when I had a chance with Schwarz. He was in the box and I was just about to pull the trigger when the CPU defender viciously scythed him down from behind. Not even Pro Evo could deny me such a clear-cut penalty, but the CPU defender got away with a yellow card. For me, that would have been red.

Andy Cole was my penalty kicker. I felt beforehand that I’d miss the penalty whoever took it, so I decided I might as well leave Andy Cole to carry the can. Penalties in PES have always been totally random. They have no actual skill element that I have ever been able to detect. If anybody out there believes otherwise—or, preferably, knows otherwise—then I’d love to hear from them. I did no more than flick the analogue stick toward the right of the net, and tap shoot. Andy Cole ran up and blasted the ball two yards over the crossbar, and the match ended 1-1.

Then Real Madrid beat me in the first game of our European Championship group. The match started pretty tamely, but I had Del Piero sent off for a nothing foul in midfield. The CPU player was miles from my goal with my entire defence in the way. My tackle with Del Piero was a slightly mistimed one from the side, the kind of tackle that’s a yellow card at most. But on this occasion it was a straight red card.

Despite the setback I took the lead. That often happens when I play with 10 men (and sometimes with less than 10 men). I play superbly and wonder how I can ever be beaten. But on this occasion, it was not to be. I admit to letting my concentration slip and allowing a soft equaliser to go in before half time. Then, in the second half, Real got their winner. I couldn’t come back, and thus I lost the opening group game. I hate doing that.

In the league I finally came up against Deportivo la Coruna. I’ve had a great start to the league season, and so have they. I beat them 3-2 with two good goals from Henry—his first for me—one of them a true poacher’s goal after a very strange short back-pass from a CPU defender to the goalkeeper.

For my second game in Europe I brought all my concentration to bear. Another defeat was unthinkable. I’m going for a Treble this season.

Benfica, another old ‘friend’ of mine from this ML career, were next. I scored early and hung on until the end to win 1-0. I had to really dig in and withstand some ridiculous pressure and manipulation of the game. I absolutely hate in PES2008 how your players are often forced to run on rails with the ball at their feet and carry the ball over the line for throw-ins and corners to the CPU. Before anyone mentions super-cancel, it doesn’t arrest the progress of my players’ running on rails. It’s a definite feature of the programming this year, just one of the myriad ways in which the AI is granted an advantage in times of trouble.

Never mind. It hadn’t cost me this time and I’d got the win I wanted. It makes the group table look a little healthier, although I hope that first-game defeat doesn’t come back to haunt me further down the line.

It’s not all doom and gloom. After the disaster of being eliminated from the Division 1 Cup by Barcelona and losing my grip on the Treble, and then compounding this disaster by losing my first league game of the season to end my unbeaten run—the only saving grace of which was that Real Madrid, my closest league challengers, also lost their corresponding game—[deep intake of breath] it was time to shake off the disappointment and get back to business.

I still have a European Title and a League Title to win. So far it’s been a trophyless Master League career (the Division 2 title doesn’t really count). I’ve got to change that within the next few games.

The Treble isn’t the be-all and end-all of Master League. It’s just something to aim for, a kind of pilot star. To me Master League is all about the stories and experiences that are generated through the season-by-season playing of games, the steady build-up of a great squad, and the development of young players.

Just before the European Cup final I played a couple of league fixtures and won them both easily. Yes, concentration and focus are both back in town. I’d wobbled after the Barca game and allowed Osasuna to beat me while I was still replaying the Cup game in my head. I wasn’t playing in the here-and-now.

I put a stop to that and knuckled down to maintain my lead at the top of the table. Now, with just two league games left in season 2015, I’m 4 points clear of Real Madrid in second place. This title is mine to lose. My last two games are against Villarreal and Real Mallorca. One more win guarantees me the Championship, regardless of whatever Madrid do. I think I’m a certainty to beat one of those teams. Hopefully these won’t be infamous last words…

Before settling the league, there was the small matter of the European Championships, aka the Champions League. So far this competition has been all plain sailing. I whizzed through the group stage virtually unopposed. I hardly broke a sweat in dismissing my knockout opponents. And so to the Final.

It was against Valencia. I was in a state of high alert, guarding against any sign of complacency and loss of focus. Valencia, as I have written before, have consistently been the toughest team for me to beat domestically—far more so than Barcelona and Real Madrid. Valencia pipped me to the league title in season 2014 and have been a nusiance this season as well. Playing them in the European Cup final was not a happy prospect.

And it was a tight game, tighter than the proverbial nun’s crotch. (Poor old proverbial nun…) Heading past the 80th minute I was convinced it was going to extra time, and possibly to penalties. I hoped not. I hate extra time in PES. I only ever play ten-minute matches and if the CPU scores then there’s never really enough time to come back. Also, I loathe penalties in PES—always have done. More than any other aspect of the game, I feel completely helpless. There’s no rhyme or reason why some players will blast their kicks over the bar, or have them saved. There’s no skill involved. It really is five coin-tosses in a row, with the whole match awarded to whoever wins the most coin-tosses. At least FIFA tries to incorporate a skill element to their penalties. Hopefully this is something Konami and Seabass (curse every last one of them, and the horses they rode in on: damn them, damn them all to hell) are working on and will resolve for PES2009 and beyond.

But this match didn’t go to extra time or penalties. I had a throw-in on the right and threw it to Bradley. I ran him a little way across the pitch and, about 25 yards out, from a pretty acute angle that he’s never scored from before, I let a shot fly… It went in. 1-0 to me, and all I had to do was hold off Valencia for a few more game minutes. My very first PES2008 trophy was imminent!

I survived those last few minutes, and impatiently pressed START to get to the presentation ceremony and celebrations. I was playing this session on the PSP. I held the little screen very close to me, wanting to savour every moment. As I watched the blank LOADING screen I felt very excited. About thirty seconds passed. It was taking its time, this celebration cutscene, but that was the PSP for you—why didn’t Sony go with solid state cartridges, just this once? Another thirty seconds passed. Hmmm. I was getting worried. The UMD wasn’t making any noise. If it was still loading, as the screen claimed it was, surely it’d be grinding away back there? It was totally silent.

I’ll cut to the chase: I had to reset my PSP and then play the European Cup final against Valencia all over again. It was annoying, but at least if I lost I’d be fully entitled to reload and play it again. As it turned out I won the final again on my first attempt. The game was spookily similar to the first one, except this time the score was 1-1 at 80 minutes, and then I got my winner. Bradley scored it again, fittingly.

And that was that. I’ve won the European Championship. Now for the league.

After taking on Chelsea on the opening day and beating them comfortably, I had another Championship six-pointer against Manchester United. This one went against me.

I was the away side. It was 0-2 to me before half an hour was over. Then Man Yoo switched on their razzle-dazzle, and my players wilted like men of straw.

The manner of the defeat rocked me back on my heels even further than the setbacks in the European Cup. I had my full First XI out. The players were mainly fully-fit and in good form (orange and red arrows all round). I started well, sure: two good goals from Schwarz and Beerens. But then I was steamrollered in the second half.

In the next league match I ‘only’ managed to draw against Liverpool. I was looking for the win - pretty desperately looking for it - and nearly threw the point away whilst doing so. In PES2008, the CPU teams are at their most dangerous on the counter-attack. This is particularly true following a corner against them. Liverpool almost won the game several times in that way. At the end I felt lucky not to have lost badly.

I’ve fallen to my lowest league position for two seasons. The wheels haven’t come off my league campaign just yet. But they are wobbling slightly. It’s far too early to run a warm bath and break out the razor blades, but it’s affecting my confidence, and in turn my performances.

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The Treble, though, is still on. Just.

The second leg of the D1 Cup first round tie against Newcastle was the most amazing, incredible, nerve-wracking match I have yet played on PES2008.

I lost the first leg 2-3 at home, remember, and approached the second leg with a certain feeling of Doom. This feeling was not alleviated when Newcastle quickly went into a 2-0 lead, as I again panickily raced around the pitch trying to get myself five goals in the first ten minutes or something.

That would seem to have been that as far as the pesky Treble was concerned. It was all over. Wasn’t it?

No. Not quite yet. I got one back before half time. Beerens, my pre-season signing, has been pretty damn good for me so far. He’s got a couple of goals in the league. He played in this cup match, and I scored with him before half time to give me a slender hope. 2-1.

It was still 5-3 on aggregate to Newcastle. I needed two goals just to get to extra time.

In the second half I pulled out all the stops, and had chance after chance. Newcastle counter-attacked dangerously. I lived on the edge at the back as I threw everything forward. Alan Smith raced clear around the 60th minute. Bramble was nearby, just behind and to the side. I sprinted him across as best I could (‘Bramble’ and ’sprinting’ do not sit well together). I thought I had the angle and the positioning to execute a slide tackle. So I did. But I missed the ball and brought down Smith when he would have been clean through. Red card for Bramble, and I was down to ten men.

I still felt I had a chance. I’ve won games easily before with ten men. Never mind that this was Newcastle in the Cup. I could do it. I rejigged my formation. Instead of bringing off a striker for a defender, I rearranged the remaining three defenders into a classic back three and just went for it with a 3-3-3. I got my reward soon after with a goal from Andy Cole. 2-2! But there were only ten minutes of the game left…

Then I only went and made things even harder for myself by getting another player sent off. Bradley this time. I slid in on a Newcastle player in midfield as I was trying desperately to get the ball back, and the resulting foul was deemed a red card offence. Curse you Seabass!

I didn’t bother trying to rearrange my formation this time. To hell with it. 3-2-3 or bust.

By the 90th minute I had more or less given up. I was already preparing my brave face for this here blog. Then a loose ball broke to Beerens on the edge of the box and I took a shot… Goal.

2-3 to me, a mirror image of the first leg scoreline. With the last kick of the 90 minutes. Somehow, I had clawed my way back. Don’t ask me how. It felt more than a little odd at the time. If the game was scripted in my favour, so what. I was too busy punching the air. Bless you Seabass…

In extra time, I was more cautious with my play. I took off a striker and rearranged my defence into an orthodox back four. I pulled my two midfielders back as deep as they could go. I left my strikers up front, hoping to pick up scraps. I was by no means settling for a penalty shootout. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t concede again. I’d rather go out on penalties than go out by conceding a soft goal after all my efforts to get back into the tie.

Extra time was tough. It was a grim battle against fatigue and error, my players’ and my own (this was all taking place at 3 a.m. in the real world). Newcastle pressed constantly but somehow never quite got through. Whenever I got the ball I had few outlets up front or in midfield. The ball always came right back at me. I carved out a few opportunities but missed them all. So, fortunately, did Newcastle.

Penalties. I scored all five of mine. Newcastle missed one of theirs. I was through to the next round.

It felt good.

I know. The coin-toss of a penalty shootout happened to go my way instead of the CPU’s way. I’ve seen my players in penalty shootouts on PES blaze the ball high over the bar or at a post for no real reason too many times to believe that there was any actual skill involved on my part. I was just happy to be through.

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For the Treble to be still on, I had to win all three of my remaining games in the European Championships qualifying group. I’d lost two and drawn one of the opening ties. I was bottom of the group.

Here in stoppage time at the end of a somewhat overlong post (that Newcastle game was just epic), I’ll keep it short, sweet, and simple: I took on Marseille at home and trounced them 4-1. This was on the back of the D1 Cup result. I was on a high. I went into the Marseille game knowing I could and should and would win it easily. And I did.

The qualifying group table still makes for uncomfortable viewing. It’s very disappointing to be bottom with two games to go. But those points totals next to the teams’ names are bunching up nicely.