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.

Summer 2006 Transfer Activity

No sooner had the season ended than Burchet and Zamenhof stormed into my office demanding a contract renewal.  I had security remove them. It crossed my mind to smile wide and offer them both 5-year extensions, then immediately put them on the market.  If this were a normal ML, I might do that.  350p in salary versus 2,200p in sale value later on.

But this isn’t a normal ML.  After I reach my salary requirements, any extra p lying around will just be used to light cigars — aside from the occasional youth player picked up on a free, there won’t be any transfer business.  This season is different, of course, as I’m trying to make sure I reach my salary requirements to avoid the dreaded Game Over screen.  To that end, Zamenhof and Burchet are more useful to me off my payroll than on my transfer list.

Giersen, Stein and Fouque were all given 5-year contract renewals, and we set up a photo-shoot with them trying to look tough under a banner that reads “The Future of Emil Athlétic Club.”

Whither thou, Palmeri?

So, when I started this ML career with just the defaults, I left it with one caveat — I’d use the defaults from past and future editions of the game as well. That means Barota up front with Gutierrez, Edingson and El Moubarki prowling the flanks, Vornander combining with Van Den Berg, etc.

Filthy ragamuffin orphans gaze wistfully through windows.

Ah, while perusing through the Once and Future defaults list, imagine looking past such illuminated names as Oscar, Wiart, Nascimento, Camacho and Fernandez.  Any one of these callow teenagers would automatically be the best player on your squad, and then . . . grow.  Your PES muscles, ingrained through years of habit, move to select Make Offer, and you wonder, reflexively, how much you’ll have to pay to get them to join you.

 

 

 

. . . And then you scroll past them, because you’re writing a blog about the Defaults, not about how awesome your ML team could be.

Do I look like a Cissé to you?

Baffilingly (and proof, I believe of the game’s little nudges toward success), Paris Saint-Germain popped up with an offer for Dodo.  They offered 729p, plus Édouard Cissé, a fantastic DMF who would have immediately become the first name on the team sheet.

With an 83 Body Balance, Speed in the 80s, and high 70s or low 80s for all his other athletic stats, Cissé would have been un-droppable.  He can play three midfield positions, and has the rare Reaction star that would have helped him secure those loose balls in the midfield.  At 28, his curve is surely declining, but he’d have to drop like a stone in order for one of those other donkeys to overtake him.  In short, he’d be the best player on the team for years to come.

Of course, with a lofty sneer, I rejected the kind offer of aid from the perennial Champions League side, sending them a very brusque form letter declining to do business.  We’ll help ourselves here at Emil AC, thank you very much, and we don’t accept charity.

New Faces

The income from the loans of Stremer and Ceciu brought me comfortably close to my requirements, and ensured that I could afford to add a few Old-School Default Regens, and two very special Future Defaults from the Newcomers list.

Emil AC is proud (ish) to announce the following additions to its roster, all aged 17:

Transfer Activity

In PES 6, no player ever sells so fast as a Default.  They felt sorry for you, I think, and programmed it so that there is something magical, a sparkle of faerie dew, a glint of quality that blinds the eye of any COM-controlled scout watching a Default.  It’s really dumb, but they will sell like hotcakes.

As part of my overall strategy, I will be selling-on any Defaults who aren’t strictly necessary for my squad.  At first blush, this includes Lothar, Stremer and Ceciu.  With Stein and Iouga holding their own as center backs (and both of them better than Stremer and Ceciu), I don’t see any need to keep the two worst defenders in the game.

As I find other players surplus to requirements, I’ll try to punt them, too.  But here’s the catch: I’m only selling them to teams in my league.  Income from sales is essentially irrelevant, as I won’t be buying any non-defaults.  Further, it doesn’t advantage me in any way if Ceciu goes off to make mistakes for some mid-table Spanish side.

I need him making mistakes for my opponents.