Memorial post:
It's been almost a year, and 2 or 3 big reboots, plus the purchase of PES 2021, since my last serious silverware in PES 2020.
It was around 21 January of 2021, and the ML was in Summer of 2026, in my total 7th season. I was manager of Greece NT, and i had already won the World Cup of 2022.
The difference this time was, the group was mucj tougher than 2022, most key players of the team were in general decline. Before the competition started, i was close enough to just SIM the group matches, cause we hardly qualified from the Qualification Phase.
After the group stage, and some re-arragement of the starting squad and tactics, in a group with England, USA and Morocco, where we passed with the usual Greek 4pts. , one of each 1W-1D-1L.....
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....In knock out stage, in top-16 we faced the usual suspects Qatar, almost in every ML where i progress to WC knock out, i face Qatar for some reason, they always clear their group with 3/3, strange things!!!!
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Well we needed Extra Time to get past Qatar. Afterwards , we faced Belgium in Top-8, clear win here, although they were the team we won in the prervious WC in semi-final, this time they were a lot aged, almost all players were the same , as when they start the game in 2019-2020 season.
And in the big match, WC 2026 Semi-final, Spain VS Greece. We are clearly the underdogs, they come with a super teams packed with wonderkids like Bryan Gil, Pedro Porro, Cucurella, JORDI MBOULA, well mostly wonderkids, highrated ex-youngsters like Rodri and super-regens, like PEPE REINA.
They did not sweep exaclty their group, but they passed undefeated and first, from a group including Brazil.
Spain Group Stage
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THE SPANISH starting SQUAD
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Me with my fellow greek players, the best of them being Mavropanos!!!!, went just for the experience

Let's play and enjoy our defeat!!!!
But it happened to be one of the greatest ML experience i've had, and one of the most thrilling matches, in me recent PES ML history. I must go back to PES 6 days, to recall a match with more comebacks, surprises and miralces....
Before i post the video of the match, as it is 29 minutes, and one of my first matches i did not cut anything outside, while editing, i will post some milestones. Basically the whole game worths watching, to understand the context, but i will try to help, cause time is gold!
Video real Timeline:
-05:50 - Spain 1-0, Iago Aspas
-06:45 - Papadopoulos lost chance to equalize
-07:56 - Spain 2-0, Iago Aspas again..

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09:08 - Another lost chance for Greece...

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11:22 - Iago Aspas hitting the post, almost killing the match and us both..
-12:21 - Greece 2-1, Fortounis closing the gap
-19:46 - Greece 2-2 , It was minute 89', +1' added time, a counter started from the heart of our defense, a great 1-2-pass by Stefanos Athanasiadis!

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21:11 - Extra time!
-23:01 - Spain 3-2, After an all-out-attack attempt, they take the lead again, with their CB (Ramis)!!!
-23:33 - Greece 3-3, Free kick in good position, Fortounis keeps us with heart pulse
-25:08 - Fetfaztidis...almost there....!!!
-26:01 - Fortounis trying the manual L2-through-pass/shoot, almost close again....
-27:49 - It is the minute 114'+ , and we approach the end of the line, a miracle has happened (again!!!!)