Don't Feed the Seagulls - Brighton & Hove Albion (PES 15)

[BobbyColtrane]

Introduction

I'm starting this thread to track my progress and post videos on a Master League I'm starting with Brighton & Hove Albion. If anyone reads this, it will be a bonus haha. I've been buying PES off and on since Winning Eleven 5 on PS2, but I've never completed even one season in Master League. I usually just play friendlies or start an ML and lose interest. A big part of the reason why is that I never get good enough with the controls. This year, I've gotten a little better, and I have a better understanding of the complex settings, formations, and strategies. I'm by no means an "expert", but I feel like I know enough to get started.

Why Brighton?

I want to start here - I am BEST a casual soccer fan. I know all the clubs in the EPL, and I have some knowledge of who plays where, but I'm not a guy that knows all the players, or who used to play where, etc. I'm a huge NBA fan, and I know that league inside and out, but this is somewhat exotic for me and kind of fun to learn a completely new league.

That being said, I definitely want to play in the EPL, the biggest league in the world and all that, but I don't want to just jump into the big clubs and start playing. I need some experience to get better skills-wise, and I thought it would be fun to build up a team to be in the Chelsea-Man City-Man U-Arsenal-Liverpool club. So I'm starting off in the SkyBet Championship to build a club, improve my skills, and move up the food chain.

The choice of Brighton was made mainly due to the sweet blue and white jerseys and the sponsor of American Express. I've been an American Express member for a number of years and they are far and away one of my favorite brands. It certainly wasn't the roster, the players they have are by and large terrible. There are only a few "keepers" on the roster starting out.

Settings

I'm playing on PC, Professional skill level, using PES Galaxy patch 4.01. With my general laziness and lack of knowledge of the EPL, I'm not really inclined to download 9 different files to update the Option file to version 5.01, which is available as of this writing.

Goals

My goals, of course, are to make the EPL, dominate Champions League, get some cheap talent and develop it, buy all kinds of cool players, score awesome goals, etc. I will use this thread to update my progress, recap games and transfers I make, and hopefully post highlight vids.

Expectations

Given where I'm starting, in terms of my choice of team and my own skill-level, it's important for me to have some goals of varying difficulty and time horizon to keep myself interested. I'm not going to be scoring epic goals and beating Chelsea right off the bat. I'm going into this with the idea that I will spend two years in the SkyBet Championship before moving to the EPL. That will keep the psychological pressure off me right away to win games, and give me a chance to develop my own players.
This way, I can experiment with lineups and formations, and be patient with my results.

Roster Moves

My first order of business was to evaluate the roster and decide what I could build off of. Unfortunately, this team really sucks. Starting in 2014, this is a mid-tier 2nd Division team. The best player was only a meager 76 OVR, and there are just a handful of players over 70. This is bad, even by SkyBet standards. Initially, my team ratings were FW 68 MF 63 DF 65.

Upon full examination, the only "keepers" on the roster were CF Colunga (72 OVR), CMF Holla (75 OVR), CB Hughes (73 OVR), LMF Lualua (71 OVR) and GK Stockdale (76 OVR). Given this woebegone roster, my first order of business was to raid the Free Agent pantry in order to start to build the type of team that can be competitive, and that I will enjoy playing with.

I sold the a couple scrubs to free up some roster spots, and then I went to work.

Immediately I signed the following:

CF - Kouboyale (69 OVR) Only 21 years old and has a chance to develop nicely, plus is really tall at 6'4".
CB - Manalt (74 OVR) Good size, and a young player who can hold down the middle now and develop.
SS - Koerthmann (74 OVR) A skilled SS who I expect to score a lot of goals this year.
LMF - Medem (75 OVR) Will immediately become one of my best players, has good dribbling and creativity in the midfield.
RMF - Qalmadreh (70 OVR) Will start at RB for me in an attempt to play offensive fullback, but ultimately will be at RMF if he develops the way I want him to.
LB - Constant (75 OVR) The anchor of my back line, got him in a transfer for $4.8mm in transfer fees and a $1.3mm salary. My biggest investment.

Now, are these signings exactly realistic? No, I'd have to say not. But then again, it's not exactly realistic to have Brighton & Hove competing for Champions League titles either, and thats exactly what I plan to do.

Wish me luck....