Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Breakers prepare for 2009-2010 Master League Season



The Santa Cruz Breakers and their fans are excited to kick off their second Master League Season in League C, Division 2. The Breakers will be facing 3 new club teams that have been relegated from League C, Division 1.


The three new teams the Breakers will face include:

1) Olympique De Marseille
2) SS Lazio
3) Paris-Saint-Germain



This year, the Breakers hope to end in to the Top 6. Although the Breakers would love to finish in the Top 3, the Breakers are realistic to know that they are still a relatively young team that will be facing improved Division 2 teams including 3 new teams from Division 1.




One major goal for the Santa Cruz Breakers in their second season will be for the Breakers to put together more goals! Last season, the Breakers offensive performance was lackluster at best. Although they had frequent scoring opportunities, especially in the second half of the season, the Breakers did not take advantage of these opportunities and often time found themselves with a draw at best or a loss.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

O'Neill Becomes Primary Santa Cruz Breakers Sponsor!



O'Neill based in Santa Cruz has announced their Sponsorship of the Santa Cruz Breakers. Although O'Neill is known for their Surf products and accessories, they are proud be involved with the Santa Cruz Breakers. The Breakers have announced that O'Neill will become their Primary Sponsor and DAKINE will become a Secondary Sponsor.




DAKINE spokesperson stated that they are excited to still be part of the Santa Cruz Breakers family and believe that the additional sponsorship from O'Neill will allow the Breakers to continue growing as a franchise and team.



The Breakers are excited to kick off their new season with both O'Neill and DAKINE as their lead Sponsors!

The Owner of the Breakers stated that he thought that this season would allow both O'Neill and DAKINE to host events both in the stadium and on the local beaches around town!



The new uniforms have been announced and include a great new design!

The home uniform is in white and the away is Orange/Blue.



The Goalkeeper uniforms include the Gray and Yellow.




All uniforms will sport the O'Neill logo on the chest and the DAKINE logo on the upper left part of the jersey.



The Breakers believe that their uniforms fit in with the surf culture of Santa Cruz and allow their team to show their roots of the "Original Surf City" that makes Santa Cruz so special.

Note: O'Neill and DAKINE are not affiliated and do not sponsor the Santa Cruz Breakers. The use of O'Neill and DAKINE as logos for this fictional Santa Cruz Breakers blog is to make the PES 2009 video game more realistic.

For additional information, please see the "About the PES 2009 Santa Cruz Breakers" section of this blog

Breakers finish 1-2-3 in Preseason!

The Breakers played 6 Preseason matches and finish with a 1-2-3 record.


The worst defeat came in their first preseason match against the South American Selection squad losing 4-0 and giving up 3 goals in the second half of play. The Breakers were overpowered by this squad's all star line up and only took 4 shots on goal the whole match.


The Breakers played a close match against US Lecce which came to Santa Cruz from Italy. Unfortunately for the Breakers, a last minute goal in the second half had them losing 1-0. US Lecce is an Italian football club based in Lecce, Apulia. Lecce will play in the Italian Serie A for the 2008-09 season, after winning promtion from the Serie B in the 2007-08 season.


The 0-0-2 start in the preseason began to worry the fans as they faced the Asian Oceanian team. However, the Breakers came out playing hard and was able to score an equalizing goal in the second half allowing them to force a draw against the strong Asian All Star squad.

The 4th preseason match came against Real Sporting de Gijón. Real Sporting de Gijón is a Spanish football team from Gijón, Asturias. Established June 1, 1905, They currently play in the La Liga, Primera División. The match against Real Sporting de Gijón was close until the end. Neither squad was able to score and the match ended in a 0-0 draw.


The Breakers 5th preseason match came against Gli Pelati where the Breakers got their first 1-0 preseason win!


The final preseason of the match came against the North American Selection squad. The American All Star or "American Dream Team" came out in full force with fans across the United States heading the "Original Surf City town of Santa Cruz, CA. Fans came to visit the beach and head to what was anticipated to be an exciting match. The Breakers played well, but loss 1-0 to the strong North American All Star team.


Although the Breakers ended their pre-season with a disappointing 1-2-3 record, the manager said that he felt his team was prepared and ready for their second Master League Season!

Valencia FC wins European Masters Cup!



Valencia CF defeated AS Roma this past weekend to win the European Masters Cup! The fans of Valencia FC enjoyed their moment!

FC Barcelona Wins European Championship



Chelsea FC fans were disappointed with their loss to FC Barcelona. FC Barcelona was crowned the European Championship this past weekend. Fans across the world, especially in Barcelona were out late celebrating their teams victory!

Assessment of Breakers 2008 - 2009 Master League Season



Obviously, the Breakers entering League C, Division 2 would be challenging. The Santa Cruz Breakers are proud to be the first club team invited to join from North America.



The final standings show it all. The Breakers finish in 10th place with 25 points and a record of 6-7-9. Although this record is less than stellar, earlier this season, the Breakers found themselves 2-4-7.

The Breakers began to play more like a team and was able to achieve a 4-3-2 record for their final 9 matches, which was a significant improvement over their first 13 matches.



A problem the Breakers had this season was scoring. The Breakers only scored 15 goals and conceded 27. Although scoring is difficult in football, scoring only 15 goals in 21 matches will definitely lead to a losing season!

The Breakers only scored 5 goals their first 13 games and gave up 13. The second half of the season, the Breakers scored (10) goals and conceded (10). This was a vast improvement over the first half of the season.


Although it was a rough first season, the Breakers actually have to be proud of their performance, especially the final stretch which had the Breakers with a fairly strong winning record of 4-3-2. Not bad for a young team from a small surf town in California.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Updated to 1.20

I've decided to update to 1.20 since I heard it would not impact my Master League and all I would need to do is re-register some players back to teams they belong in etc... So far so good. I was hoping for a feature called Theater of Legends, but I guess it was not included in the update???

I believe the Theater of Legends is supposed to let us upload replays or goals to a server to be shared or something??? I think the concept sounds great.

I wish we were able to convert our saved PS3 replay files to am more user friendly format. Possibly in the future??

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Who's Moving Up and Who's Moving down?



The Breakers will remain in League C, Division 2 as they have ended their first season with a 6-7-9 record and in 10th place. The major victory the Breakers have is keeping LOSC from advancing by forcing a 0-0 draw in their final match. If LOSC won, they would have been tied in points with Stade Rennais FC the 3rd place team which will advance next season.



The 3 League C, D1 teams being relegated are Olympique De Marseille (18th), S.S. Lazio (19th) and Paris Saint-Germain (20th).

Olympique de Marseille
(also known as l'OM [lo'ɛmɘ]) is a professional French football club based in Marseille. Founded in 1899, they play in Ligue 1 and have spent most of their history in the top tier of French football. Marseille have been French champions eight times, and have won the Coupe de France ten times (a record) and became the first and only French club to win the UEFA Champions League in 1993.

Società Sportiva Lazio, (BIT: SSL) commonly referred to Lazio, is an Italian professional sports club most noted for its football section, founded in 1900 and based in Rome. Lazio participate in thirty-seven sports disciplines in total, more than any other sports association in Europe.[1][2]

Lazio's association footballers, who play in sky blue shirts with white shorts, have won Serie A twice, first in 1973–74 and then again in 1999–00. As well as winning four Coppa Italia trophies, Lazio have earned silverware on the European stage, winning the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and UEFA Super Cup both in 1999.[3] The club has spent most of their history in the top tier in Italian football, where they are currently playing in the 2008–09 season.

Paris Saint-Germain Football Club or PSG, is a French football club based in Paris. Their home stadium is Le Parc des Princes. Paris Saint-Germain has been playing in the French Ligue 1 since 1974.



Congratulations to the Top 3 League C, Division 2 teams being promoted to Division 1.
Werder Bremen (Position 1), FC Zenit St. Petersburg (Position 2) and Stade Rennais F.C. (Position 3). Both Werder Bremen and FC Zenit St. Petersburg easily finished in the Top two positions, while Stade Rennais F.C. barely made it to the final position.

Breakers First Master League Season Ends!


The fans of the Breakers cheered their team all the way off the field after knocking LOSC out of the Top 3 of Division 2 with a draw.


The season had a number of ups and downs for the Breakers and their fans.


The Breakers end their season with a 6-7-9 record and in 10th place of League C, Division 2.

The Manager of the Breakers held a press conference to discuss his thoughts about their first season. The manager stated "As expected, we faced a number of top quality club teams and has grown as a team."


He mentioned that "the first half of the season was rough with the Breakers struggling to come together as a team." Furthermore, "I feel we've shown the world that a young squad from the real surf city (Santa Cruz) in the United States could come together and play competitively against some of the best teams in the world."

The Breakers definitely need to continue growing as a team over the coming weeks and in preseason.


The next question is if the Breakers will be adding a number of new players or stick to their original team??

Breakers face LOSC in their final League Match



The Breakers face LOSC for their last Master League Match of the 2008-2009 season. The first match against LOSC had LOSC beating the Breakers with the only goal of the match being scored at the 11'.

The fans of the Breakers came our in full force to cheer the Breakers on in their final league match. While the Breakers don't have anything to lose in this battle, LOSC could possibly be in the top 3 with a win??? Could the Breakers spoil


The match began with the Breaker having a number of great opportunities on goal. The first shot came from Manning (16) who had a close range shot, but was unable to get it past the keeper!


The second half of the match had a brilliant shot by E. Chow (63) who unfortunately wasn't able to get it past the strong goal keeping skill of LOSC's goalie.

LOSC did everything they could have done in the match but score. They dominated the match with 55% to 45% possession and even had 6 shots on target out of 8. The Breakers defense



The match ended in a 0-0 draw. Ironically, the draw only gave LOSC 1pt which has knocked them out of the Top 3. Next season should be interesting with the Breakers definitely having a heated rivalry against LOSC next season!

European Masters Cup



The European Championship Cup final match has been set! AS Roma faces Valencia CF.

AS Roma Associazione Sportiva Roma, (BIT: ASR) commonly referred to as simply Roma or AS Roma, is an Italian professional football club from Rome. Founded by a merger in 1927, Roma have participated at the top-tier of Italian football for all of their existence bar one season in the early 1950s. For their 57th season in a row, Roma are competing in Serie A for 2008–09.

Roma have won Serie A three times, first in 1941–42 then again in 1982–83 and 2000–01. As well as winning nine Coppa Italia trophies; on the European stage Roma won an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1960–61, but have had come close to success finishing as runners-up in the European Cup in 1983–84 and the UEFA Cup in 1990–91.

Valencia CF (also known as Valencia or Los Che) is a Spanish professional football club based in Valencia. They play in La Liga and are one of the most successful and biggest clubs in Spanish football. Valencia have won six La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey trophies, one UEFA Cup, two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups and two Spanish Super Cups. They have also reached two UEFA Champions League finals in a row, losing to La Liga rivals Real Madrid in 2000 and German club Bayern Munich in 2001. Valencia were also members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs.

In the all-time La Liga table, Valencia is in 4th position behind Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao. In terms of international titles, Valencia is 3rd behind Real Madrid and Barcelona, these three being the only Spanish clubs to have won more than five international trophies.

Valencia is the third most popular football team in Spain, only behind Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.[3] It is also one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of number of associates (registered paying supporters), with more than 50,000 season ticket holders and another 20,000+ season ticket holders on the waiting list, which will come into effect once the new 75,000-seater stadium is built.


The final match will be played this weekend!

European Championship



The European Championship final match is set.
Chelsea FC will face FC Barcelona in the finals.

Chelsea Football Club (pronounced /ˈtʃɛlsiː/, also known as The Blues or previously The Pensioners) are a professional English football club based in West London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea have been English champions three times, and have won the FA Cup four times, the League Cup four times and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup twice.[2]

The club had their first major success in 1955, winning the league championship. Chelsea won several cup competitions during the 1960s and 1970s, but after that did not win another major title until 1997. The past decade has been the most successful period in Chelsea’s history, capped by winning consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006, and reaching their first UEFA Champions League final in 2008.

Futbol Club Barcelona (Catalan IPA: [fudˈbɔɫ ˌklup bəɾsəˈlonə], Spanish IPA: [ˈfutβol ˌkluβ baɾθeˈlona]), also known simply as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça (Catalan IPA: [ˈbaɾsə], Spanish IPA: [ˈbaɾsa]), is a sports club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is best known for its football team, which was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Spanish men led by Joan Gamper. The club has become a Catalan institution, hence the motto "Més que un club" (More than a club).

FC Barcelona is one of the only three clubs that have never been relegated from La Liga and the second most successful club in Spanish football having won eighteen La Liga titles, a record twenty-four Spanish Cups, seven Spanish Super Cups and two League Cups. They are also one of the most successful clubs in European football having won two European Cups, four UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, three Inter-Cities Fairs Cups and two UEFA Super Cups.

Chelsea FC beat West Ham and New Castle United.

FC Barcelona beat Spartak Moscow, and Manchester City.


The 2008-2009 European Championship match has two world class club teams facing off this weekend!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Finishing Master League Season 1 and 2 before Updating to 1.20

The truth is out that I am behind on the blog and am actually closer to being half way through with my second Master League Season with the Santa Cruz Breakers! I have done a better job of maintaining data and highlights from my second season and will be finishing up with the first Master Season before hitting the second Master League on this blog!

I've decided to at least finish my second Master League season before updating fully to 1.20. We have no choice but to initially get the 1.20 file to start the game. However, once we have this done, we have to going to system setup to actually download and use the 1.20 file.

I'd love to hear what people think of the 1.20 file for the US PS3... I've heard from some folks at PESGaming who told me what the European 1.20 update has, but have not heard yet what is included in the US version.

I'm a bit disappointed that the update ruins the user created teams etc... I guess this means a lot of work to get my team situated again... I'll also need to be starting with Master League Season 1 again once I update... UGH!

My final thought on this matter is to possibly wait for 1.30 since I guess this one is the bigger change and addition... Also, by this time I'm sure or hope that we have option files that work for 1.20 or 1.30 on our US PS3.

How great would it be if PES 2009 Option Files were universal across all PES 2009 games and not have European files or NA files etc...

PES 2009 1.20 Update on US PS3!

I am trying to figure out what difference the 1.20 update has on the game... But as I turned on the system to play the game tonight it told me that the 1.20 update is necessary to play the game... It only took about a minute and supposedly I have 1.20 now???

Any ideas?

Sunday, March 1, 2009

League C, Division D2 Cup Results





The Breakers were knocked out of the D2 Cup in the first round by Stade Rennais FC. Although the Breakers would have liked to have done better in the D2 Cup, being knocked out early was able to allow the team to focus on the more important league games ahead.



The Cup continued with Shakhtar Donestsk facing Willem II in the finals.

The final match was well played at ended in a 2-2 tie after regulation. Neither squad scored in the extra time and the match was forced to penalty kicks.

Willem II beat Shakhtar Donestsk with a 5-4 goals in the penalty!

The fans of League C, D2 Cup could not have asked for a more exciting match and finish.

Congrats to Willem II for being champions for the 2008 - 2009 D2 Cup! Well Done!

League Game 20: Santa Cruz Breakers vs CFR CLUJ

The Breakers are coming away from an impressive 2-0 victory over the league leading Werder Bremen team from Germany. With only a few games left, the Breakers are looking a lot stronger in their second half as their team is beginning to gel and play like a real team.



Their next match in front of the home crowd is CFR CLUJ. In their first match against each other, the Breakers came away with the 1-0 victory. They hope to pull off another win and give their home town fans more to cheer about!


The match began quickly as Chow (34) took a strong shot on goal, but couldn't get it past the keeper.


Both teams had a few shots on goal in the first half, but only CFR CLUJ was able to find the back of the net with a great goal at the 41'.

The second half of play had both teams playing fairly aggressive.


The Breakers were finally able to break away as Bock (33) nearly made a header, but the goalie was able to just tip the ball out of play.


E. Chow (63) took a beautiful pass from Chow (34) and barley missed a shot of his own attempting to tie the match up!


Finally, Sabatini (3) was able to score the equalizer at the 74' from a beautiful pass by Manning (16).


With plenty of time left in the match, CFR CLUJ created a solid scoring opportunity, but it ended well past Desi (5) the keeper and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.


The fans of the Breakers were a bit disappointed since Santa Cruz had 8 shots on goal and 5 on target, but only was able to get the one goal that at least tied the match up and let them walk away with the draw!