The Master League adventures thread

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BOLTON REINVIGORATED!! (PES 2019)
The Wanderers Return to the Premier League on the Last Day of the Season!!

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Man, was that a great season with a lot of drama! The board's directive was clear before the Championship started: Manager José Maria Goya had to get the Wanderers promoted to the Premiership, as an unprecedented injection of talent made the Wanderers one of the favorites in second division. You all know the cast of characters: Our Four Musketeers, Nigerian Magician Jay-Jay Okocha, American star Landon "Dotan" Donovan, Japanese Legend Hidetoshi Nakata, and our long-term Captain and Team Leader Sol Campbell. Led with this talented, young cast (22-25 years old as the season started), expectations for promotion were riding very high.

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And deliver they did! However, the road was long and full of obstacles. The English Championship was full of good and talented teams that were aching to fight for promotion as well. An interesting twist, as I mentioned earlier, was the great play of our starting striker, Jamaican-born Clayton Donaldson (pictured below, with his arms extended). who had decided earlier to retire after the season ended, no matter what. But he had a great season, and was the unofficial "Fifth Musketeer" all throughout the season, banging goals left and right, and earning top goalscorer in the league! What a way to end his career!

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Spanish Manager José María Goya (invented by millossobek, loosely based on a younger Rafa Benitez), had his hands full with this team. Not only do the Wanderers have four young superstars, but they also had a mix of aging players and young prospects to juggle and manage. However, Goya did a wonderful job by having everyone buy into his system, with no egos, and have the whole team follow the talent of the Musketeers. (I also had a very nice signing in the midseason, Colombian Kevin Balanta at Defensive Midfielder, who helped anchor the team and give it stability). One of the most important cogs in the wheel was undoubtedly Sol Campbell (in this alternate story, he is a Bolton product, and intends to play his entire career here). His calm yet determined professionalism kept the entire team in check, and his steady leadership led the team throughout the Championship very steadily.

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Going into the last games of the season, it definitely looked like a three-horse race for promotion between Aston Villa, Stoke City, and our Wanderers. Just a quick review of the Championship format: The top two teams advance automatically to the Premier League, and teams placed 3-6 have to fight in a playoff in order to determine the third promoted team. My goal was pretty clear: I didn't want to leave anything to chance, and wanted to earn promotion directly by finishing in one of the top two spots. Going into the final fixture, we were in third place, well ahead of Third Place Middlesbrough but trailing Aston Villa and Stoke City. The table looked like this with one match left to go:

Stoke City 92 points, + 38 Goal Difference (last game at home vs Derby County)
Aston Villa 90 points, + 34 Goal Difference (last game away vs Nottingham Forest)
Bolton Wanderers: 89 points, +41 Goal Difference (last game away vs Rotherham)

A nerve-wrecking final fixture was in store for us. We were not in control of our own destiny, as even if we won, we had to expect the chips to fall our way in order to get promoted. But things worked out for us in the final match!! Even though Aston Villa beat Forest and claimed the Top Spot in the Championship, Stoke City LOST to Derby County AT HOME 0-2!! (Derby County finished in the bottom half of the league!) This, combined with our 2-5 away domination of Rotherham, gave us DIRECT PROMOTION TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE ON THE LAST DAY OF THE SEASON! :BSCARF:

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As you can see below, this combination of results meant that Aston Villa won the league, Stoke City (who eventually lost in the playoff final against West Bromwich Albion) was not able to hold on to their lead and incredibly lost their place in First Division, AND WE GET PROMOTED ON GOAL DIFFERENCE!!!! (I guess I really have to thank Derby County for this one! :LOL: ) In anycase, this was a HUGE relief, since I really was in no mood to play a tough playoff against the 4-6 ranked teams! I really also loved to send off my striker Clayton Donaldson with a huge reward for retirement, as he played a huge role in his last season as a player, helping the Wanderers have earned direct promotion! The Musketeers' saga continues.. We will be playing next season in the top flight of English Football, The Premiership!!!!

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:BSCARF: Stay tuned for The Musketeers' continued adventure in English Football!!!! :BSCARF:
 
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Great Dotan :) Now let's head fornthr Premier.
Thanks man!!!! Can't wait to play in the Premiership and face bigger challenges and the "modern" players with my old-school stars! :BSCARF:

Why your shirt numbers and names are black in black background in this kit? Does the patch locks you out of editing markings?
Yeah bro.. Well the main two kits that came with smoke patch are red (home) and white (away), so I didn't want to use them, wanted to use the more traditional Bolton kits so I added 3rd and 4th kits that I found online,and the away one has that black-on-black background. Unfortunately though, the main kits are locked in Smoke Patch, do you know if there might be a way around it? I'd like to feature brand-new kits (actually old-school, lol) for my Premier League debut!
 
@millossobek great job mate! Must feel great to win to win prom on goal difference, lately i've been having bad luck with it myself lol, but glad you pulled it out.

You already know how you'll approach summer market? :)
 
@Madmac79 It was really exciting man!! Not knowing how that last game would turn out, and actually earning direct promotion depending on other results was exhilarating!! (Thanks Derby County!!) Luckily the chips fell on my side and the results worked in my favor!! :TU:

In terms of summer transfer market, I have a few priorities. Well first of all, I spent a lot of salary money retaining my Four Musketeers and giving them extensions. That definitely had to come first, I want to play with them for the entire duration of my Master League! The only drawback is that didn't leave me with too much salary to spend. However, I do have some money so my idea was to replace the recently retired Clayton Donaldson with a new striker, hopefully young, and also promote a few players from my youth academy. These are my two most important signings so far: Romanian Andrei Ivan (for some reason I really like to have Romanians on my team, haha), and the other one (who I acquired in the Winter Transfer market and who played really well at DMF in the second half of the season), Colombian Kevin Balanta.

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So now my plan is to probably acquire a goalkeeper (I need a better one for the Premier League) and try to see what other bargain players I can get with good growth, especially at Side Backs and I also probably need an additional Center Back to complement Sol given that my other CB's are not too skilled and are aging. (I'm playing Diamond 4-4-2 formation, with Okocha at AMF, Nakata and Williams at Center Mid, Donovan as the speedy secondary striker, and Campbell manning the back 4). Let's see how it goes! :BSCARF:

I'll post my starting eleven once the summer transfer window closes! :)
 
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Anyway, I imagine playing Legend, with the mininum budget and the hard transfer level, possibily with a bad team, must be the ultimate roguelike football experience or something tho.. almost tempting on paper :P
Have you started the ML on Legend difficulty? How is it going so far? I am really strugglijg on it and i am getting fired after first season. I've tried Malaga, Fiorentina, and QPR on Legend difficulty. But the result was same: i was gettings sacked after one season.

What is really annoying is that you have to concentrate 100 % of the game and thats really hard, because in some matches i want to relax a little bit. And what also bother me is the variety of goals i concede against CPU. They are almost all of same type. The central striker of the opposite team stops the ball at the edge of my box, turns right or left and then makes a shot, that goes into the corner of the net. It doesnt play a role what skills this striker has, is it OVR 67 or 85, he WILL score his goal. And that is really hard to defend.
 
Have you started the ML on Legend difficulty? How is it going so far? I am really strugglijg on it and i am getting fired after first season. I've tried Malaga, Fiorentina, and QPR on Legend difficulty. But the result was same: i was gettings sacked after one season.

What is really annoying is that you have to concentrate 100 % of the game and thats really hard, because in some matches i want to relax a little bit. And what also bother me is the variety of goals i concede against CPU. They are almost all of same type. The central striker of the opposite team stops the ball at the edge of my box, turns right or left and then makes a shot, that goes into the corner of the net. It doesnt play a role what skills this striker has, is it OVR 67 or 85, he WILL score his goal. And that is really hard to defend.

In all honesty I haven't really tried it yet, was saving it for when I'll be more confident with the game at Superstar, as I'm still struggling enough with this level.

Yeah I mean, I think Legend isn't really supposed to be a relaxing experience. I notice that things go more or less badly when I'm not focused even at SS, I imagine taking a notch up would be even worse. The only solution I can see here is suck it up and play only when you feel at your best, or going a bit down in difficulty.

Talking about my own adventure in 2021 ML SS with CPU goal variety - I remember I used to take a lot of goals with the central striker turning thing, now that I became more proficient in defending it I see every kind of other one (headers, screamers, scrappy ones) way more than the infamous turn. I suspect with Legend it must be something similar, with the exception probably CPU is a lot better at exploiting it so it takes more effort to stop it (or sometimes it directly gets impossible).

Then, as I said I've never really properly tried it. My impression is also that the more the difficulty level goes up, the more the CPU gets mechanic and tries often what's more efficient.
 
Thanks man!!!! Can't wait to play in the Premiership and face bigger challenges and the "modern" players with my old-school stars! :BSCARF:


Yeah bro.. Well the main two kits that came with smoke patch are red (home) and white (away), so I didn't want to use them, wanted to use the more traditional Bolton kits so I added 3rd and 4th kits that I found online,and the away one has that black-on-black background. Unfortunately though, the main kits are locked in Smoke Patch, do you know if there might be a way around it? I'd like to feature brand-new kits (actually old-school, lol) for my Premier League debut!
just read this. Sorry mate, i have no clue about modern PES editing in PC, ftex, cpk, hex, gta, hdmi, i ingore all those staff. What i remember when i was downloading Smoke Patches for 2017 , yaers ago, they use some different editing method than the usual, cpk maybe>???!!!! No idea..
 
@sir_mamont Difficulty is really relative depending on which PES edition you play.. :THINK: For example, I find Superstar completely unplayable in PES 2019 ML, even with gameplay mods, so I stick with Professional with mods (even Top Player seems scripted). But SS I think is the best difficulty for PES 2021. A lot of players have called Legend in PES 2021 unplayable since the CPU is too overpowered!

@slamsoze Yeah man, I was looking at the download folder and I kits are embedded in a smoke patch cpk. Maybe there's a way around it but it seems difficult to change the locked kits.. I'll look into it though! :TU:

@Madmac79 I've had an eventful summer transfer market bro, much more than I expected!! Will be posting the updated squad soon. :)
 
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@sir_mamont Difficulty is really relative depending on which PES edition you play.. :THINK: For example, I find Superstar completely unplayable in PES 2019 ML, even with gameplay mods, so I stick with Professional with mods (even Top Player seems scripted). But SS is the best difficulty for PES 2021. A lot of players have called Legend in PES 2021 unplayable since the CPU is too overpowered!
Thanks, mate. I think I would also go down to SS after the ongoing ML with Celta Vigo.
 
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BOLTON WANDERERS' SUMMER TRANSFERS TO FACE THE PREMIER LEAGUE!

The Summer Transfer window ended up being much more eventful than I originally thought! Thanks to some shrewd budgeting and transferring a lot of my older and lower rated guys, I was able to bring in a good group of players to reinforce the Four Musketeers of Okocha, Nakata, Donovan, and Sol Campbell. My most glaring need was at Center Forward, since Second Division Championship Hero Clayton Donaldson decided to retire at the end of the season!

First of all, I acquired two good Center Forwards, Adrian "Rocky" Balboa (that's his real name!), an Uruguayan 25-year old Striker who has played for several South American teams, as well as short spells in Panathanaikos, looking to be the everyday striker and finisher for the team! Also signed the aforementioned Romanian Andrei Ivan, a 22-year old promise who I acquired to rotate with Balboa. Also decided to sign secondary striker Paulo Vitor, a Brazilian 20-year old talented secondary striker with a bright future as a backup to Landon Donovan! All o these signings up front are solid, but I especially have a lot of faith in Balboa, he has a massive responsibility on his shoulders as the #9 who has to fill in huge shoes in the retiring Donaldson, and also will probably be one of the main beneficiaries of the talents of the Four Musketeers! :TU:

In the midfield, there are two important additions, The first one is the previously mentioned Kevin Balanta (actually I transferred him in midseason during the Championship), and has been the everday starting Defensive Midfielder. The Colombian is a strong, well-balanced player, he has a crucial role in the team as the main defensive anchor in the midfield. Since I'm playing 4-4-2 diamond, Balanta's contributions are key to hold the line in the midfield and let Nakata and Okocha roam freer and create on offense with their superior talents. In addition, I signed English DMF Nico Yennaris (whose father is Greek Cypriot and mother is Chinese) to back him up in the extremely competitive Premier League.

The back line has the most reinforcements out of all positions, signing a total of 7 players (including goalkeeper)! One of my top priorities was to field a more than competent Center Back to pair up with Sol Campbell. Instead of going for a big name, I decided to go with three young and solid Center Backs: Jake Cooper from Millwall, 24 years old, Kasper Larsen (26) from the Danish League, and Marko Mihojevic (23), a Bosnian promise from the Greek League! These three players will be competing for the starting spot and form a solid trio to complement Campbell.

I also added a quality right back: Italian Guiseppe Pezzela (22), one of the flashier transfers of the offseason! From Udinese, Pezzela has very good passing and decent speed on the side wings, is a well rounded overall player, and is an immediate presence in the starting 11! Additionally, Youcef Atal, a 23 year old Algerian international will do his business at left back, also sliding immediately into the starting position! From the Belgian League, Atal is not very strong but he's quite fast and forms a quality duo with Pezzela! These two are amongst my most important signings, as I had glaring weaknesses in those positions and both Pezzela and Atal fill those needs more than competently! To back them up, I signed Lloyd Kelly from Bristol City, also fast and can play both positions, and at only 21 years old, can really grow and blossom as a great youth prospect.

Finally, even though goalkeeper David Stockdale did well in our first season in the Championship, he is now 34 and possibly nearing retirement. To this effect, I signed English Marcus Bettinelli from Fulham, (27), son of the Fulham goalkeeping academy coach Vic Bettinelli. Of partial Italian descent, Marcus is a major upgrade from Stockdale as not only is he higher reated, but also 7 years younger and poised to take over the everyday goalkeeping duties!

How as I able to finance all these moves in the offseason (11 in total)! Well I got rid of a lot of players (especially subsitutes who were lower rated and aging), and was able to get good deals on their sales as well as capitalize on my Second Division revenue, which was higher than I expected! So now, manager José María Goya has a major challenge. Incorporate these 11 players into the team (4 new starters), build up chemistry, and fight to stay in the Premiership! Don't know how I'll do in the Premier League, but one thing is guaranteed: These are exciting times for the Wanderers! :BSCARF: Will the Four Musketeers be able to lead this diverse, exciting group to higher grounds? The foundations are there!


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Bolton's 2019-20 Premier League Starting Eleven!

:BSCARF: Stay tuned for the epic continuation of the Wanderers' Premier League campaign! :BSCARF:
 
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A little bit sneak-peek of the "new" 2017 kits of Oranje FC, for PES 2017. Wanted to make it, ala Chicago Bulls intro, with the lights flashing and shutting with the drum hit, but the PS4 film maker, does not allow so complicated things, so the results is a little bit half-arsed!!! :P :D That's life!!! :)

Just pretend that the initial effects, are stadium lights flashing on and off!!! :BAND::BY::PP:FISH:
 
Really appreciating your Iss Pro 2 ML (except for, ehrr, your team choice.. :P ). Those Psx games do really had spectacular flow.

Also astonishing to note there was more injuries depth back then compared with all the modern chapters :LOL:

It's in fact PES (1) but the differences between it and ISS PE2 pretty much unnoticeable! The team choice was dictated by the CM 01/02 crossover. Roma are THE team in CM 01/02 without a shadow of a doubt!

Flow and depth are two key words. The PS1 games still have them in abundance.
 
It's in fact PES (1) but the differences between it and ISS PE2 pretty much unnoticeable! The team choice was dictated by the CM 01/02 crossover. Roma are THE team in CM 01/02 without a shadow of a doubt!

Flow and depth are two key words. The PS1 games still have them in abundance.
There is only one question, that tortures me since that days of early 00's.

Why nobody jumps, when he takes a header?
 
A little bit sneak-peek of the "new" 2017 kits of Oranje FC, for PES 2017. Wanted to make it, ala Chicago Bulls intro, with the lights flashing and shutting with the drum hit, but the PS4 film maker, does not allow so complicated things, so the results is a little bit half-arsed!!! :P :D That's life!!! :)

Just pretend that the initial effects, are stadium lights flashing on and off!!! :BAND::BY::PP:FISH:
We Will!! We Will Rock You!! :BAND: Awesome presentation for a Brand New Team!! The Oranje FC fans are getting Pumped!!
 
Hey bros! :)

Just a quick update: Will be continuing my Bolton Wanderers story in my ML thread, as it is gathering steam and actually I'm spending a lot of time playing it. If you'd like to follow it, just click on the link.:TU:

Will be posting updates on the Dinamo Zagreb save (and additional stories besides my main ones) in here, and I'll definitely keep an eye out on the awesome adventures I've been following in this brilliant thread. :BSCARF:
 
Time for another small update on my MLs.

While in the League I'm still navigating in the mid table, I finally went through Coppa Italia quarter finals against top dog Fiorentina in my Pes 2021 Spezia ML:


Was another pretty epic double confront. Vlahovic is truly the bane of my life in this edition - scoring against my team in almost every single occasion we faced, wasn't an exception in the Firenze first leg, finalizing a truly beautiful distance goal. Then I got to draw with the new signing Shomurodov - quick in stealing the ball from the last defender and conclude. Unfortunately, after a lot of pressure, Vlahovic put in another one in the second half with an opportunistic shot in the area. 2-1 for the final result.

Return match was way less turbulent. Fiorentina defended with order and it seemed I couldn't produce many chances. At a certain point, Fiorentina subbed Vlahovic without him being able to score to me for once.. and it felt like something was turning.

Flash forward to the final minutes, and I had a free kick not far from the box. I subbed Verde minutes ago and the only barely decent kicker I had was a zero stamina remaning, left back Pedro Amador, who if I'm not wrong scored zero goals in two seaons, until now. Well, as you can guess by yourself he put it in with a nice curling shot.. he was so tired you can appreciate him do the limping run even during the celebration :LOL:.

So, the match ended without any other emotion and now I'll face Sassuolo in the semis. Despite not being one of the biggest teams by name, they were among the most troublesome ones in Serie A to me, due to their trademark low passing game. Well, we'll see how it will go.

I also started another ML in Pes 2017, in PL, with Wolves, using a Smoke Patch of the last season. Will save it for another post tho :BEER:
 
@Madmac79 What a free kick from Amador! That was from waaaay downtown, I don't know how many meters! (haha, 90's NBA lingo :LOL: )

Nice that you were able to beat Fiorentina! I've been able to beat them as well twice in the Coppa Italia with Reggina. :) Now on to Sassuolo, hopefully you can apply some nice tactics to counter their passing game and move on to the final!

Can't wait to hear about your PES 2017 story bro!! So you decided to play the EPL! Will be interesting to see what the team looks like and what your approach will be! :)
 
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Was tempted since a lot ago, for a PES 2017 run, by reading @millossobek ML topic.

Still running my 2021 and 2020 runs, and also a 2018 and a 2019 saves. Nothing stops , until there is a big EDITING reason to give up, like Inaki Williams playing for Ghana national team, and similar Nationality changes.

2018 and 2019 are a big experiment basically. I am just FIGHTING against the beast, which is SUPERSTAR AI in Master League.

Also after a recently conversation on pesgaming forum, the spark inginted again. And finally, i had the mutliple teases of @vialli82 :COOL: that nobody plays Eredivise , never in Master League, which of course is not 100% accurate, i had a run with Fortuna Sittard and Ajax in the past, other 2 guys have played with Ajax.

So i decided to start someting on 2017, and in EREDIVISIE!!! :) :D

As Fortuna Sittard is not a team i 2017 PES, i went for my all time classic, Utrecht FC. The problem was, and i noticed after i started the 1st match, that the Utrecht kit of 2017, does not have name in the back, only sponsors, which is part of "gamebreaking" for me. :)


So the solution was, to restart and edit the League structure, moving my created "fake" team, Utrecht Oranje, or better since 2020, Oranje FC. A team inspired by Utrecht and the Netherlands national team, you know total football, flying ducth, etc...

The decision on which team to move to PEU Leauge was tough, cause Go Ahead Eagles, and other lesser teams, have promoted this year again, so i went back from 2016-2017 season on wikipedia, until today, and removed the team that had the less appeareances in Eredivisie, and the less tier and the least fancy kits/logo. :P :P

IIRC it was Willem II, not so sure.

Only problem is, the team needs heavy fixing/editing, cause they have some old kits and badges, i used back from 2016, so i need to create new kits, cause unfortunatelly, cause the new kits i had created for them, are in 2018+latter template, so the logos in the socks are not centered properly.

The emblem i am using, is an alternative of Utrecht, as i am very bad at creating something artistic from scratch.

I had a dutch belgian Luxembourg embryonic ml a while back. Playing as a fictional oostende zaandvoorde. You could move teams into a 2 div set up you don't mind losing. I move peu and others into the English leagues, new logos etc for the leagues etc
 
@rockstrongo What match duration are you playing mate? Have you taken a look at your transfer window yet? A tough beginning, but I'm sure things will start to look up! :)
10 min, usually play 15 or even 20 min.
havent really looked for any new players,need to sell afew first to make room.
i usually dont make transfers the first window, plus playing with a really bad team, so if i get relegated its ok.
except pes 6 and 17, my best ML was on PES 11 back in the day, also with Blackpool ,stayed up with 1 point season 1 and 4 points season 2.
really a great ML
 
Guys, for my third Master League Adventure (After Reggina and Bolton), I have decided to pause my Dinamo Zagreb story and start my first French Ligue 2 Adventure in PES 2018 with an invented team!! VILLEURBANNE FC!! :) :TU:

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(Home/Away/Goalkeeper Kits, a bit based on my Millonarios team colors!)


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Team name: Villeurbaunne FC
Nickname: Les Dragons Bleus
League: Ligue 2

Founded in 1981, VBFC has just been promoted from the third division for the first time. Hailing from the small city of Villeurbaunne (population 152,000), "Les Dragons Bleus" look to make their impact on Ligue 2 for the first time!!

My plan is to take low-rated Free Agents (mainly from France but also from other countries) and make it the least talented team in Ligue 2, and take it from there!

Will post more updates soon!! :BSCARF: :BSCARF:
 
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Guys, for my third Master League Adventure (After Reggina and Bolton), I have decided to pause my Dinamo Zagreb story and start my first French Ligue 2 Adventure in PES 2018 with an invented team!! VILLEURBANNE FC!! :) :TU:

View attachment 193474
(Home/Away/Goalkeeper Kits, a bit based on my Millonarios team colors!)


View attachment 193469
Team name: Villeurbaunne FC
Nickname: Les Dragons Bleus
League: Ligue 2

Founded in 1981, VBFC has just been promoted from the third division for the first time. Hailing from the small city of Villeurbaunne (population 152,000), "Les Dragons Bleus" look to make their impact on Ligue 2 for the first time!!

My plan is to take low-rated Free Agents (mainly from France but also from other countries) and make it the least talented team in Ligue 2, and take it from there!

Will post more updates soon!! :BSCARF: :BSCARF:
Very good pick. Were you inspired by the histotic basketball team, or was just by the city?

This 150,000 small city, got me in the knee!! :P :D
 
Guys, for my third Master League Adventure (After Reggina and Bolton), I have decided to pause my Dinamo Zagreb story and start my first French Ligue 2 Adventure in PES 2018 with an invented team!! VILLEURBANNE FC!! :) :TU:

View attachment 193474
(Home/Away/Goalkeeper Kits, a bit based on my Millonarios team colors!)


View attachment 193469
Team name: Villeurbaunne FC
Nickname: Les Dragons Bleus
League: Ligue 2

Founded in 1981, VBFC has just been promoted from the third division for the first time. Hailing from the small city of Villeurbaunne (population 152,000), "Les Dragons Bleus" look to make their impact on Ligue 2 for the first time!!

My plan is to take low-rated Free Agents (mainly from France but also from other countries) and make it the least talented team in Ligue 2, and take it from there!

Will post more updates soon!! :BSCARF: :BSCARF:
Man that emblem looks cool af! Feels like something out of Game of Thrones.

Anyway, I remember 2018 ML as one of my most frustating gaming experiences. Which level you'll play at?
 
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