Five Game Winning Streak Now In PES 2019
I have a five game winning streak now, playing Pro Evolution Soccer’s Master League mode. I’m now up to 9th in the standings, where previously my team was always around 16th to 18th in the standings. It seems like the team is coming together now. I’m also starting to feel comfortable with the game.
I used to play the game in a rush. I was rushing to get the ball to the other side, rushing to pass, rushing to shoot, rushing to clear the ball off the opposing player. All that made my team vulnerable to counter attacks from the opposing team. So after a streak of games where the best I could manage was a draw, I took a step back to evaluate what I was doing wrong. Sort of like investigating an application that is performing poorly, as far as programming goes.
First thing I looked at was, did I have the right players playing for the proper position in my lineup? I mostly had it right, except for a couple mistakes.
- I was playing Giorza as a Left-back when he is actually right footed. So I moved him over the other side to play as a Right-back.
- Now I had to find someone to play the Left-back position. I initially tried a couple of Left-back specific players, but they were all slow and couldn’t really help in defense. Then I found Canning at the bottom of the list. His preferred playing position is Center midfielder, but he was left footed, so when I moved him to the Left-back position, it showed that he could play that position to his fullest potential. So that’s settled.
This is how my formation looks. I run what the game calls a 4-1-3-2 formation, but I like to call it a 4-4-2 diamond formation.
Another thing I did was evaluate the Attacking and Defensive Instructions I have set for the team.
- As mentioned in a previous post, I switched from the “Counter-attack” tactic to the “Possesion Game” tactic. This seems to work better because my two strikers, Goios and Arcas aren’t fast players. They could beat defenders on a well timed pass, but could not hold on to the ball long enough to get a better shot. The switch to “Possesion Game” allowed me to hang on to the ball long enough, that I could actually make better through passes that led to scoring opportunities for both strikers.
- While I didn’t change it, I tried to understand how the “All-out Defense” tactic was supposed to work. This taught me that I should hang back and keep the opposing player in check, until other players got back on defense. This change alone to defending, helped my team avoid conceding goals on counter attacks. Previously I used to rush the opposing player with my Center-back trying to disposes them, which left me vulnerable to the 1-2 pass.
Another change I made was to decrease the number of crosses I played and instead focused on feeding the ball to the center with ground passes. The reason for this change is because Goios and Arcas aren’t particularly strong with their headers. In fact they suck at headers (or I do), either way I could barely score goals off headers from crosses and this was reflected in the monthly performance reports that I was getting from my assistant coach. The only cross I now consider using is the low cross, which is something that both strikers can capitalize on. I only use the low cross if I have either striker one on one against the defender with some space between them.
Lastly, my substitution strategy goes like this.
- At around the 60 minute mark, I move Arcas from his SS position to AMF, then replace Casteldine with Hervey, who has the Super-sub trait/skill. This allowed me to keep the pressure on the opposing defenders with a fresh striker in Hervey. This allowed Arcas to stretch his legs in the AMF position and let’s him use his ball control skills to feed balls to Goios and Hervey, or score goals himself.
- For the other two subs, I bring in Vrany to play the LMF position and for the last sub, I replace whoever is running out of stamina with preferably a defensive minded player.
Looks like this post ended up longer than it was supposed to be so I’ll end here. I am loving PES 2019 on the Xbox One except, for its inability to accept option files that add licensed teams and kits.