The best out-and-out tackler on offer in the team, Valeny was an absolute rock at the back and the defensive foundation upon which any debut season on Master League was built. Just don’t go relying on either of his back-ups– we’re looking at you, Kelsen and Zamenhof, with your crisp packet hands. He may not have had the cat-like reflexes of his fellow Russian Lev Yashin, or even Dmitri Kharine for that matter, but Ivarov was a steady pair of hands between the posts well into his 30s.Īll of which was great, because it meant you didn’t have to splash out on a new goalkeeper early on into your Master League tenure. Lining up in the default 3-5-2 formation, here is that classic line-up revisited in all its glory. The aim was simple: to mould them into a winning team season by season or, at the very least, accumulate enough funds so you could go out and buy the Emperor in his pomp, Adriano.Ī rag-tag team of diamonds in the rough, one-trick ponies and the occasional dud, the default Master League squad’s entirely fictional line-up remains a thing of beauty to anyone who has ever played and loved Pro Evolution Soccer.
Something of a precursor to FIFA Career Mode by way of Football Manager, Master League put you in charge of a team of Mighty Ducks-style footballing misfits. What really separated Pro Evo from its more polished EA Sports rival, however, was the game’s inspired single-player Master League mode. Many an hour/day was lost to Konami’s flagship football sim, often in the company of friends from school, and later university, locked in seemingly endless cycles of “winner stays on” matches. Growing up as a gamer and football fan in the 2000s there were really only two types of people: FIFA fans and Pro Evolution Soccer gamers.Īnd while FIFA had the official kits, familiar player names and fully-licensed teams, Pro Evolution Soccer – known colloquially as PES or Pro Evo – was the superior gaming experience, even if you were playing as Middlebrook or the Merseyside Reds.
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