The Master League has undergone many changes over the years. One thing that has not changed much is the importance of team spirit, or teamwork.
The Importance of Team Spirit
Team spirit means a lot in PES. No matter how good your skills are, and how high the ratings your players have, low team spirit will affect your team’s performance.
I believe this is Konami’s effort to increase the realism of the game. We have often seen teams with players of average quality working hard as a team to cause upsets against world class teams, sometimes even winning league championships and cup tournaments.
Prioritise your team spirit rating.
What Affects Team Spirit Rating
Team Spirit rating is made up of
- Player’s familiarity with your attacking and defensive instructions
- The captain
Player’s familiarity with your instructions
Each player has a different preference towards your attacking and defensive instructions.
Some are more adept at ‘Possession Game’ rather than ‘Counter Attack’. Some play better in a team utilising ‘Short Passes’ than ‘Long Passes’. You can check out each player’s preference under ‘Team Info’ of your Master League menu.
The Captain
Your choice of captain affects the overall team rating. Sometimes, the choice does not really make sense in real life. It doesn’t have to be, as long as it helps you win the game. Players with team roles of ‘Conductor’, ‘Bandiera’, and ‘Legend’ will give your team spirit rating a boost when selected as captain.
Achieving High Team Spirit
For purist, what you can do is to only sign players that suits your style of play, and deploy attacking and defensive instructions that align with the majority of your team.
That said, I do think that is too much effort for casual players. I certainly do not do that.
The shortcut for me to achieve a high team spirit rating is
- Choose your ideal formation, attacking and defensive instructions.
- Go to your team line up, and press the R3 / Right Analog Stick button for the system to automatically select players for you.
- If you wish to reset the selection, press the R3 /Right Analog Stick button again.
- To make slight line up adjustment, manually select players to replace. Your team spirit ratings will be adjusted accordingly.
The auto-selection option is the best way to find players that fit your playing system, saving you the time to scan through each player’s preferred playing style.
It also take into consideration form arrows. Sometimes, the selection may not make sense e.g choosing a DMF for a CMF position, choosing a tired player on top form instead of a fresh player on normal form. You can easily make adjustments on your own.
Once this is done, go to your captain selection, scroll through all the players to find someone that will push your team spirit rating upwards (or at least not downwards). And you are done.
Benefits of High Team Spirit
After many years of playing PES, and many games in the latest versions of PES, I believe that team spirit is probably the most important factor in getting me victories.
Players play better, they pass more accurately, they make smart runs. Everything seems to flow very well when you have a team of high team spirit.
Do note that when you make substitutions, especially when you sub the captain out, your team spirit rating will be affected.
Do what you can to achieve and maintain high team spirit throughout the game.
Team Spirit Changes Throughout the Season
Teams that play together for a long time will understand each other better. You will notice that your team spirit rating will gradually increase after a few in-game months.
New players will initially cause team spirit rating to decrease, and will not longer have a negative effect after playing in the team for a while. Be patient and give your team time to gel.
Conclusion
Team spirit is crucial to doing well in Master League, probably ahead of having top players, and your playing skills.
Strive for the highest possible team spirit rating in every game, and you will have a more enjoyable time in Master League.
Main image credit: Konami