D2 Cup Quarter-Final First Leg: Nantes 0 – 1 Emil AC

0 – 1

Les Baudets  continued their fine run of form, finding the goal just minutes after the start.  On their first spell of possession of the match, Ruskin picked out Castolo making a run into the box.  The dreadlocked wizard took a speculative shot that squirmed in at the near post,  more a condemnation of the keeper than credit to the Brazilian.

Gutierrez should have doubled the lead minutes later when he found himself alone with the keeper after a nice interchange with Macco.

Emil looked the more dangerous team for the remainder of the first hour, but then a swarm of locusts slowly settled on the pitch, and Les Baudets found space in midfield increasingly restricted by aggressive tackling.  Oliech in particular looked dangerous, twice running directly through his would-be tacklers.

Hamsun and Vornander were restored to the lineup, in the hopes that a bit of strength might see out the result.  The changes helped somewhat, and Emil was able to produce one more foray out of their own half, but following that, were pinned back for the final 15 minutes, each attempted clearance falling to a Nantes player, only to be quickly lobbed back into danger.

But the Donkeys were up to the task, and Vornander and Hamsun both managed to use their height to defensive advantage, preserving the clean sheet.

Emil Athletic Club No Longer the Single Worst Team in Europe

Emil Athletic’s board of directors quietly celebrated the news that their club is no longer the single worst team in Europe, sources close to the club told us.  The directors rented a zeppelin with a hanging pagoda, and hired a stripper to jump out of a cake  decorated with 71 candles while drinking champagne from ceramic moulds of donkey’s hooves.

According to the newest rankings, Emil AC are tied for 71^st place (of 72 places) with fellow Division 2 whipping-boys ADO Den Haag.  D2 compatriots Toulouse, Heracles Almelo and RKC Waalwijk join them in the bottom 10. 

2007 D2 Table after Matchday 3

Top of the league, we’re havin’ a . . . wait, wut?

Emil Athlétic Club	7 (+5 GD)
FC Twente	7 (+2 GD)
FC Lorient	6
RKC Waalwijk	4
Toulouse FC	4
FC Nantes-Atlantique	3
ADO Den Haag	1
Heracles Almelo	1

7 points from the first 9 is an excellent start for any team dreaming of promotion, but for the Defaults, it is mind-blowing.  It might also be misleading, as the Lorient game was by far the softest any opposition has defended in our first 16 matches.

Is this the Scripting Sign I’ve been looking for?  The moment where the Great Meta Plot decides it’s time for Emil AC to win a few?  We can hope, but I won’t bet my year’s supply of Donkey Chow on it.  The match against RKC Waalwijk was as grueling a pressure-fest as we’ve seen to date and it was only the mobility of Castolo in place of Hamsun’s strength that opened it up for us.

In fact, if I could surmise what I’m learning about the defaults so far, it’s that mobility and speed are probably the most desirable qualities for our lineup.  By the numbers, Minanda and Ordaz are the best Defaults in their positions, but in actual game-play, Castolo and Fouque are far better choices because they are quick enough to make use of the ball once they get it.

Here’s another way to look at it – players of nearly any passing statistics can move the ball around and occasionally find a final pass.  Players who are slow or clumsy are never able to evade aggressive defenders.

Ordaz, Minanda and Hamsun all suffer from a stuttering first touch and/or general sluggishness, which allows the nearest defender to charge them down and dispossess them, no matter how bad his initial positioning.

When I’ve paired the mobility of Fouque and Castolo with the speed of Ruskin and Macco on the flanks, we’re actually . . . (looks around) . . . dangerous.

Matchday 3: FC Lorient 0 – 4 Emil AC

0-4

Gutierrez’ hat trick illuminates the way forward for Emil Athletic Club

Les Baudets emerged from the tunnel with their stunted, hairy tails up, and found little resistance.  From the outset, Emil AC had their way in the middle of the park, and several quick exchanges i the early going produced a rocket of a shot from Fouque that Cappone was lucky to save.  Just ten minutes into the match, Gutierrez intercepted a sloppy pass and put Castolo through on goal.  The Brazilian worked past two defenders before picking a top-corner finish over the outstretched hands of Cappone.

The Lorient defense never looked up to the task, and four minutes later Gutierrez broke his donkey duck when he picked up a finely weighted lay-off from Macco and slotted home from close range.  Guti hit the crossbar just before the half, producing loud groans from the away support that have invested so much hope in the young Spainard.

They wouldn’t have long to wait for his second, as just after the half, Castolo again proved problematic for the Lorient defenders, and while they were able to dispossess him, the ball fell nicely for his strike parner, and Gutierrez smashed home his second of the match.

Guti-gol (as certain sections of the support insist he is to be now known) always looked like finishing his hat trick, and after provoking a pair of top-shelf saves from Cappone, drew a line under the affair when Ruskin picked him out for a left-footed bottom-corner blast.

L’Emil Independente gave the hat-trick hero an astronomical 8.5 rating, and called the match “a blueprint for the future.” The next day, the paper ran a double-page spread detailing “10 More Ways the Manager Can Ensure the Opposition Do Not Try Very Hard.”

Matchday 2: Emil AC 0 – 0 Heracles Almelo

0 — 0

A stern, tactical match yields little joy for either side’s strikers.

Fouque and Castolo were installed into the first team after their strong impact on the previous week’s game, and while both performed admirably, the match degenerated into a dour, cagey affair where Heracles Almelo seemed content to sit behind the ball and Les Baudets unable to pick the lock.

Hamsun came on for Castolo at the hour mark, and after bullying his way through the back line, came close in the dying embers, but his toe-poke at full stretch went wide.

El Moubarki was honored for his running, and took home the man-of-the-match 40 oz. of malt liquor.

2007 Matchday 1: RKC Waalwijk Away

 0 – 1

The Donkeys endure a spell of intense pressure before finally turning the tables with a late goal.

And Lo, the COM said unto them, “Let not the ball pass into the net, for I struck it not, neither have I commanded it. Let not one pass be strung with another, and let the Asses gnash their teeth and be sated on dust, so they will know that I am the COM”
(I Donkeys 4:14)

By the time the echoes of the opening whistle had died, it was obvious that Les Baudets had been smote with a Hercules Locust Swarm — a toxic script of Biblical proportion that doomed any forward effort, and made the goalless first half feel more like an accomplishment than disappointment.

With nearly any completed pass a triumph against the odds, it was all Les Baudets could to to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.

Waalwijk’s 4-2-1-3 shape and aggressive pressing meant that the back four were heavily pressured playing the ball out of defense, and during the first half were forced to rely on several heroic clearances from Libermann to keep the score level. A half-time replacement of Castolo for Ordaz gave the visitors a more mobile outlet and they slowly adjusted to the pressure.

By the final half hour, Les Baudets had solved Waalwijk’s pressing, and were putting the home side on the back foot with repeated corners. On the 83rd minute, substitutes Espimas and Castolo sent the away support into a frenzy when the Spaniard found himself in space inside the 8-yard box and played a square ball to the unmarked Brazilian, who smashed it first-time.

2007 Formation

Emil AC 2007 Season 4-4-2

What changed in this 4-4-2?

The primary concept for it is that a narrower and more compact formation will hopefully help me avoid the dreaded nip and snatch.

Up top, the forwards are pulled back as far as they can be.  In the previous formation, they had been given diagonal arrows away from goal*.   In this formation, I’ve tasked Hamsun with holding up the ball, and Gutierrez with making the cutting runs looking for finishing positions.

The midfield is also more compact, with both wingers tucked in.  Dodo has been instructed to prowl the half-way line — I want him covering my defense.  Ximelez is given arrows to cut inside primarily to free up space for Jaric to run in to.  Super Jaric has an 84 Long Pass Accuracy, the best on the team.

I’ve changed the midfield pairing from two center midfielders to a DMF / CMF partnership.  Ideally Minanda will support the attack from behind the line — some attacking midfielders in PES  6 seem to want to lead the line.  What I’d love to see is a holding midfielder willing to move forward in support but lurk outside the box looking for cutbacks, and patrolling for clearances and scything down counter-attacks with reckless commited challenges

My back line is also pushed forward as part of  the new compactness — this could be risky, I’ll have to see.  But I am much more confident in a back four that includes El Mou, Vornander, Libermann and Jaric.  I will keep the back line set to C so they ideally remain cautious and somewhat protected against that little chip over the top that for whatever reason only the COM can do accurately.

I’ve indicated the starting 11 that I think might give us a chance at promotion. Big Ulf Vornander takes over Iouga’s spot in the center of defense on account of his height and strength.  He will be initially partnered with Liberman, but if all that big, dumb and slow starts to hurt us, Stein or Iouga might be called in to do a job.  El Moubarki is undroppable — second on the team sheet after Ivarov.  Jaric is third on the sheet at left back, as his height makes him less of a liability on set-pieces than Ruskin and his crossing ability and delivery on set pieces are indispensable.

Dodo is our best DMF, although on the rare day when he isn’t selected, Stein is a more than able stand-in. Jaric could also do a shift at DMF (and his long passing might be even more useful from a central role). Minanda is still our best creator, but his deputy Ettori will see quite a bit of the pitch. Minanda is playing in the CMF role because I’d like him to be more available to Dodo and the side-backs during build up, rather than out in front of them.  We’ll see if he has the stamina to play box-to-box.  Ximelez gets the nod on the left for his dribbling and long passing accuracy, while we’ve established that Macco Works Every Time™

Gutierrez starts up top on the right, because despite his poor debut season, he has to come good eventually — in the long run, he has the most potential of any of Les Baudets, and the club will only go as far as his class takes us. His passing stats among the best in the side, and I can see a more mature Guti in a creative role as well as a finisher, possibly playing in the hole.  Hamsun is our #9, because at 188cm, he’s big enough to get on the end of crosses, and his Post Player star will help him hold the ball up for the other strikers.  His passing stats are nothing special, but he is registered as an AMF, which tells me the developers intended him to be a bit of a creator as well as a target-man.

————–

*This was done in the vain hope that the forwards could be instructed to make runs to the outside of their markers, where my wingers might be able to find them.  No such luck.

I don’t know what mechanic controls the runs strikers make, but I do know it’s not entirely down to the arrows.  Some forwards make great runs, but most make “hiding runs” — sprinting to get a marker between them and the ball.

“If it isn’t in the script, it doesn’t get in the picture.”

We all know the game has scripts that it runs when it determines that outcome X or Y is more desirable than Z.  While it really drove me mad back in 2006, I am much older and wiser now, and I’ve come to appreciate it for what (I believe) it is: an attempt to simulate the often bizarre ups and downs of sport.

“Football, bloody hell.”
– Sir Alex Ferguson

I appreciate what scripting adds to the overall drama of a Master League season, but that doesn’t mean that I necessarily love it when a script hammers my side, turning a routine league match into a life-or-death murder fest, transforming Crap Team FC into Barcelona for the 20 minutes it takes to overturn a 2-goal lead.

As I’ve been playing through this experiment, I’ve kept a bit of a Script Diary, and in the spirit of an 18th-century naturalist, I’ve identified several strains of PES 6 Scripting:

2006 PES-verse Update

In the alternate PES-verse, this transfer window was relatively quiet, with no big-name moves, or shock transfers, aside from Barcelona selling Andres Iniesta to Valencia (and replacing him with Roman Eremenko, lol).

Other moves include:

• Konami Youth Camacho ended up at Benfica (Passing, Playmaking and Middle Shooting for the win)
• Deportivo la Coruna beat Chelsea to the signature of Florent Malouda, offering Diego Tristan to the French side in exchange
• Rafael Van der Vaart was snapped up by Bayern Munich, who also added one of my favorite PES 6 players, Botanaski
• Liverpool bolstered their back line with the addition of Bruno Alvez
• Arsenal picked up Konami Youth (and future Default) Oscar.

In D2 news, FC Nantes-Atlantique added Ooijer to their back line, a move guaranteed to give Ordaz and Castolo night-sweats.

Off You Go

The feeling of selling a Default is a bit like when you got surprise ice cream as a kid; that giddy feeling that you had a secret treat. Whenever I sell one of these donkeys to my competition, I know that I’ve strengthened myself via subtraction, and weakened them by addition.

Shockingly (to me at least), nobody else wanted any of my uber-donkeys. I tried to sell Lothar, Zamenhof and Ceciu, but none of the other teams wanted to pay for the crappiest defensive players in the game. Weird.

So I released them into the wild, with a text message saying “you r surplus 2 requirements lol come pick up ur stuff @ the back door b4 homeless ppl steal it”

Imagine my glee when Feyenoord snapped up Ceciu on a free.