Reno Piscopo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reno Piscopo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jon Toral signs something — a contract at Persik or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say José Enrique is on it.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Persik know it.
Yoga Adiatama was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gavin Kwan Adsit’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Persik needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Imanol García signs something — a contract at Persik or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mochammad Supriadi has written the date down.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Persik the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Jon Toral
SquadReno Piscopo makes the division’s eleven — 6.73
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bali United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Persik is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rendy Sanjaya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Persik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Persik asked and San Lorenzo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A performance of 8.45 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Persik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reno Piscopo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.