November 2002
I was in Piccadilly Circus with my gf on a Saturday and we went into HMV to see what new games they had.
I noticed that PES2 was being played over at the far wall so I went to check it out.
There was this guy in his 30s playing as Holland against a younger boy who could have been about 12 and playing with England.
They were using a broadcast camera view and the older guy was toying around trying to be flash (and possibly trying to show off to the kid's older sister). The match finished 4-2 and the kid looked a little upset as he wondered off. Seemed like it was winner stays on.
Since there was no-one else eager to play against this 'master' I took the second controller.
He asked me if I was good and I replied that I was OK, as you do...
He picked Nigeria and I went for Brazil. As is normal in a shop, there was no memory card to fix anything in the game so I was playing with Roberto Larcos and Ravoldi etc.
It was a ten minute match and I believe it was set to random player form although for some reason I decided to play with the default Brazil line-up and didn't even check the player form, which is strange for me.
The camera was agreed to be set to wide and we started the match.
He barely started when I stole the ball and passed it around a bit. After a short while, the ball came to Rivaldo just outside the area. Left foot shot - into the top right corner, in off the post.
"WAS THAT A GOAL??!!" he cried (I'm not sure what his tone implied).
"Err, looks like it went in", I replied. I showed him the replay just so he could be sure.
The match continued. The closest he came to my goal was about 35m from where he took a couple of blatantly high and wide shots very much off target and no threat to anyone except some of the cardboard fans sitting further up the stands. He knew how to do the shot fake but doing it near the halfway line isn’t too impressive.
I passed it around, some good dribbling from Roberto Carlos down the left wing, cross to Ronaldo, header - goal.
(My gf started to smile and maybe to stop from laughing she wondered off
)
Ronaldinho, through ball, Ronaldo goal.
Rivaldo, bang, there's another one.
"But you're good, innit?!" he said. I shrugged my shoulders and kept playing without saying anything.
Cafu cross, Ronaldo back heads it on to Ronaldinho to tap in. The Brazilians were having a good day. Ronaldo scored another header from a corner. Went close with a couple of free kicks after some very dodgy fouls but not close enough.
Final Score: Nigeria 0-7 Brazil.
He looked kinda gutted as turned to leave.
I said "Good game" and he replied "yeah, it is a good game".
A couple of guys wanted to play me but unfortunately I had to leave.
I don’t feel bad about beating him because he thought he was such a man by beating a child which he only just managed. Quite a good performance considering I didn’t fix the formation, team or strategies like I am used to doing. I would have liked to check out the match stats and how the player form actually was but I didn’t think of it at the time and the chance passed. Oh well.
Another time when I was there I had a real match against an Oriental guy who knew how to play properly and it was a good challenge. He was Italy and I went for Brazil again (I’m not sure why since my best team is England). He had the better chances but I won it 2-1.
I'm not sharing this story to show off.
But some people really shouldn't be too cocky and think they are 'all that' or things can come crashing down for them.
I've also had bad days, including one where I did quite badly at a PESTAL tournament. When I came home and tried to find out what had gone wrong, even my gf beat me (Italy 1-0 England) so maybe this shows that anyone can have a good or a bad day when playing.
(Just found out that this was my 2,000th post. Cool!)
