Thales

Central Defender - Arema
22 Oct 2027
Friday
Process

Marked for Thales

63 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

11 Oct 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

Thales in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arema this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad

Words at Arema training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dendi Santoso 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.

The dugout

Luiz Gustavo gets picked when it counts

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 Luiz Gustavo is on it.

Market

Dalberto linked with a move away

The name of Dalberto keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Arema say nothing, which says plenty.

Squad

Luiz Gustavo wants to know why he earns less

Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Arema have no good answer.

The dugout

Bayu Setiawan asks for a word with the manager

“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.

In brief

  • The dugout Dalberto keeps his manager's vote
  • Squad Andrian Casvari is not doing himself any favours
  • Match Nothing left to play for but pride at Arema
Back issues
61 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

27 Sep 2027
From our football correspondent Crisis

Match

Arema finish in position 12

37 points, and the season has a number on it. Whatever it felt like from the inside, this is what it will look like in a book.

Match

The wait goes on for Arema

6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Player ratings

Hendro Pratama, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61

A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Player ratings

Gabriel Silva was unplayable

Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.

Squad

Walisson Maia in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arema this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match

Hendro Pratama’s goal not enough for Arema

Hendro Pratama scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Borneo, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.

The dugout

No hiding place for Thales

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thales, and the manager let it.

The dugout

The manager’s verdict

“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑3 Rizky Maulana left the room before anybody could ask which.

Squad

Dendi Santoso 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.

In brief

60 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

20 Sep 2027
From our football correspondent Crisis

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Gustavo França

Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Player ratings

Age has not caught Dalberto yet — 8.03

At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.

Match

The wait goes on for Arema

5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.

Squad

A falling-out at Arema

Walisson Maia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Match

Dalberto’s goal not enough for Arema

Dalberto scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Bhayangkara Presisi, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.

Transfer targets

Deadline beats Arema to Habibi Jusuf

The clock did what Borneo would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.

The dugout

The manager’s verdict

“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Rizky Maulana left the room before anybody could ask which.

Squad

Dendi Santoso 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.

The dugout

Thales asks for a word with the manager

“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.

In brief

  • The dugout Betinho gets picked when it counts
  • The dugout The plan did not have a place for Thales
  • Looking ahead Joel goes back to face Borneo
56 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

23 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

Johan Alfarizi damages knee ligaments — 28 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 28 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.

Match

Nowhere to hide for Arema

1‑4 against Persib, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.

Squad

Lucas Frigeri stands alone

7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.

Market

Salim Tuharea asks to leave Arema

“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.

Transfer targets

Dieguinho will not be coming to Arema

Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Chaves is saying, and nobody at Arema is enjoying the guessing.

Squad

Tempers go at Arema

Thales 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.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Enzo Cardozo

Arema asked and Almirante Brown said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Match

Persib end the Arema run at 4

Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Betinho

“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.

In brief

55 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

16 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

Johan Alfarizi damages knee ligaments — 37 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 37 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.

Match

Nobody wants to play Arema right now

4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.

Transfer targets

Aqil Savik due for a Arema medical

Everything agreed with Bhayangkara Presisi, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.

Transfer targets

No thanks: Esteban Calderón rejects the move

Arema had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at O'Higgins, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.

Squad

Thales in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arema this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Match

Joel sends Arema past Persita

It finished 3‑1, and it was Joel’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Arema.

Player ratings

Gustavo França beats them one at a time

Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.

Transfer targets

Arema rebuffed over Matías Caballero

Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Patronato have kept their man, and Arema go back to a list with one name crossed off it.

Player ratings

Valdeci was on a different afternoon to everybody else

8.37. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.

In brief

  • Player ratings Dalberto was on a different afternoon to everybody else
  • Player ratings Joel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
  • Squad Paulo Sitanggang falls out with a teammate over standards
53 Edition

The Arema Sentinel

2 Aug 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

The knee: Johan Alfarizi out for 51 days

51 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arema lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.

Player ratings

Gustavo França runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

Match

Arema win it in stoppage time

The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. PSBS Biak will replay every second of the added time for a week.

The dugout

Thales: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Arema have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Player ratings

Both of them Dalberto's — 8.26

2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.26, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.

Squad

Walisson Maia in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arema this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Kevin Coronel

Arema asked and Argentinos Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Match

Arema get the job done against PSBS Biak

A 2‑1 win over PSBS Biak, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.

Squad

Words at Arema training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dendi Santoso 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.

In brief

38 Edition

The Persija Herald

19 Apr 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Match

Persija refuse to drop out of the race

Position 2, 27 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.

Match

Whatever happens, Persija do not lose

11 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.

Squad

6 saves: Carlos Eduardo was the team

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.

Player ratings

Age has not caught Alaaeddine Ajaraie yet — 7.84

At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.

Market

Only the photograph left for Cyrus Margono

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cyrus Margono will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Persija the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Squad

A falling-out at Persija

Alexander Jeremejeff and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Match

The run is over for Persija

5 matches without defeat, and then Borneo. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.

Player ratings

Witan Sulaeman runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

The dugout

No hiding place for Thales

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thales, and the manager let it.

In brief

10 Edition

The Persija Herald

5 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Squad

A falling-out at Persija

Alexander Jeremejeff and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.

Boardroom

141% of the income goes out in wages at Persija

Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.

Squad

Jordi Amat 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.

The dugout

Denis Kolinger gets it from the manager

“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.

Squad

A place in the month's best eleven for Bruno Tubarão

Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Bruno Tubarão has come out of that comparison in the side, and Persija have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.

Market

Talks stall between Persija and Denis Kolinger

“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.

In brief