Game Log | PES 2019 – 001
I played my first two international friendly matches as the coach for the US Men's National Soccer Team. I won both games against Wales and Slovenia. I used the same 4-4-2 diamond formation that I am using with my Master League team. A couple of notes on this:
- The striker Weah for the US Team is super fast. Opposing center backs can hardly keep up. I need to look into feeding him the ball in counter attacks. He does seem to have trouble finishing. Not that he's not accurate with his shots, just that they get blocked often. That's probably on me and my shot selection, and not on the player stats.
- I need another “fast” center back. Miazga is fast enough, but his partner is not. When I played against Wales, Bale ran circles around my slower center back.
- Similar to what I see happen with Casteldine, Ogilvy who is my AMF, can sometimes have trouble keeping the ball. Need to make use of more one-touch passes. He also will run out of stamina just like Casteldine before the game ends.
- I don't have good substitution options for LMF, RMF and the fullback positions. I don't think I have a choice though as I already have the best possible players in the lineup.
After playing the international friendly matches, next up on the schedule was the European Cup Championship. The first game was against Paris-Saint Germain. I have not kept up with European soccer but I still know some players. As soon as I saw Neymar and Mbappe in the PSG lineup, I knew it was going to be a tough game. Mbappe in particular was a handful, tearing down my left flank. My fullback Giorza is a strong defender, but he is slow (69 speed stat) and Mbappe kept blowing past him. I lost that game 2-1. I was surprised I only conceded 2 goals. I chalk that up to learning how to defend better after playing against Real Madrid earlier. I nearly tied it up but ran out of time.
I am having a tough time playing against teams with really fast wingers.
The problem that I have now is that I am doing so well in the PEU League, which means I am getting qualified to play against elite teams like in the International Champions Cup and European Cup Championship. My players who are good enough for the PEU League (you can think of the PEU League as like a Division 2 league I suppose) are not at the same level as the players on elite teams. So I need to find a way to bolster my lineup.
First things first, I need to find faster fullbacks, with at least a speed stat of 80. I need to be able to defend the flanks properly next time I go up against top level teams.