Every match I play in my new Master League career as Coventry City on the PSP version of PES2008 shows me something new about the game.

During this league game against a very tidy Almeria side, I discovered a couple of things. For example: you can’t sprint in midfield, or at least it’s best not to sprint in midfield. No matter how much space you think you have in front of you, a CPU player will emerge from the side of the screen and nick the ball off the toe of your sprinting player. I don’t know if this is a side-effect of the PSP’s smaller screen. Will I see the same effect on the big screen when I upgrade to the PS2 verison next week?

Part of me hopes so. Even though it mostly nerfs one of my favourite long-standing PES moves: the extended sprint in a straight line through midfield (not all of it; just 10 virtual yards or so) followed by a stupendous, blockbusting, 45-yard piledriver into the top corner of the net. The name Mathieu is not far from my mind here…

It’s still early days for me and this Coventry City team in this Master League, so it could be that all I need are better players and the CPU won’t be able to steal the ball from me as easily as it does at the moment.

I took the lead against Almeria. From one of their corners I cleared the ball and it found its way to Camacho, a player who I can’t get enough of at the moment, standing just inside the centre circle.

Only Podolski and Sergio Garcia were ahead of him. I played a nice floated through-ball with the outside of Camacho’s boot over the defence into Garcia’s stride. He was clean through on goal, albeit at an angle.

After a week playing this ‘last-gen’ PES2008 I knew that I couldn’t afford to take my time with the finish—the CPU defenders were tracking back and would be upon me before I knew what was happening if I left it for even a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

I aimed with the analogue nub (I use the analogue nub!) at the opposite top corner and pecked at the shoot button. I’m still getting used to the last-gen version’s more sensitive shooting. The ball flew into the net, exactly where I wanted it to. It was Garcia’s first goal in my team. I was pretty pleased with it.

Results have been hard to come by. It would have been nice to grind out the win, but I couldn’t hold on. Around the 80th minute an Almeria striker jinked through my central defenders (Maldini and Couto, both 17-year-old Regens) and tucked the ball past my keeper. 1-1 it finished.

I’ve made a pretty good start here in Superleague Division 1, considering that I’m running under several self-imposed rules designed to make this game—the easiest-ever PES—a bit more difficult, at least for a time.

Game 4 of the season was against AC Milan. I worked off some of the bad feeling from my game against Real Madrid with a relatively straightforward 2-0 win.

The best of my goals was from Rasnic. The enigmatic AMF seems to pick and choose his games to play well, but always delivers the goods when he does—

—I like this goal because it’s a pretty rare example (for me) of a first-time snapshot on the turn.

Next-gen PES2008 has a built-in pause when human players receive the ball in and around the edge of the box. The pause only lasts for a split-second but it’s definitely there. It’s most noticeable when receiving the ball in a good position to shoot from long distance. The game enforces a slight delay before letting you try the shot. This pause usually makes quick turns and first-time snapshots like the Rasnic one above pretty difficult or actually impossible—the CPU players swarm all over you before you have a chance to shoot. (I’m going to be talking about that pause a lot over the next week.)

Another thing that I’ve just noticed is a very strange line of commentary from John Champion that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Occasionally when you have a headed shot, he’ll say something like “Header too!” Or is it “Header two”? Or “Header to”? Whichever one it is, it is complete nonsense. Unless I’m drastically mishearing the line. Which I might be.

I must have heard the line a couple of hundred times by now, but it was only this morning that I thought, hang on, “Header too”? What the hell?

Perhaps the controversy raging in my mind put me off my stride a little. I lost my next game against Espanyol 2-1. It was not a good game. Thankfully I returned to form in the next game, which ended Atletico Madrid 0-3 Singers FC.

That was more like it, and keeps me in amongst the big boys at the top of the table. All in all I’ve got to be very happy with the opening of this season.

The shooting mechanism in PES2008 is slightly peculiar for a PES game. It seems difficult to get any height on long-range shots. Most will fly toward the net at head-height. Getting them up, up, up in the air - high enough to curl over and down around the goalkeepers’ despairing dives - seems tricky.

Some people recommend double-tapping the shoot button. I.e., first tap the shoot button, then press it again for the desired power. This actually seems to work, although more often than not the resulting shot flies high over the bar. I don’t remember seeing this in the manual, which I’ve read all the way through from cover to cover (does anyone ever actually use the blank Notes pages toward the back of some game manuals for the making of Notes?).

I suspect it really is just all about the power - that and the player’s placement, his footedness, the proximity of opposition players, angle to goal, wind direction, etc. etc….. It should be no more difficult, from what I have seen so far, to blaze the long-rangers in on PES2008 than it was on PES6 or PES5. In fact I think it might turn out to be easier, what with these slightly dodgy keepers and all. It’s just a matter of getting used to the tweaked parameters in the new game. Time will tell on that front.

I’m still playing International Cups - and still not won one. I’m playing on Top Player these days. It isn’t obligatory for me to win a Cup before progressing to Master League, but it would be nice. I came close today. Something clicked, and I flew through the group stage, thumping my first two opponents 3-0 and then, in the case of poor old Wales (the group minnows), 5-0…

The third goal I scored in that match was the best I have scored on PES2008 so far. I had a corner on the right. Instead of pinging the ball into the box and just sort of hoping for the best (as I do with 99% of all corners), I thought I’d try something different. I rotated the view left and saw Gerrard and Lampard standing a few yards outside the box. Gerrard was marked. Lampard wasn’t. I aimed at him and pressed for about a three-quarters-strength cross…

Beckham has a fine delivery. The ball arced through the air. But I had slightly misjudged the power. I’d wanted the ball to fly directly to Lampard, but it bounced about a yard away from him. No matter. I met the ball on the half-volley and walloped it past all the defenders and the goalkeeper into the back of the net. Nice one, Frank.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KapR-B5FpBI&rel=1]

I was eliminated from the tournament in the Quarter Finals by the Czech Republic. Unaccountably, I found myself 0-3 down within 30 minutes of kickoff. The CPU teams in PES2008 often have this knack of being able to magically twist their way through any and every challenge, get possession back instantly whenever they lose it, and walk the ball into the net if that’s what they feel like doing. I’m not bitter. Not much.