73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Persis will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Nobody's fault and entirely his: a goal that goes into the book with his name against it and nothing about it intended. Persis deserved better, and so did he.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Persis told Cleylton something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Maluku Utara United will make the call about Jefferson this week. Persis have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persis can pretend not to have heard.
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words at Persis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitri 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Abu Kamara signs something — a contract at Persis or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Febri Hariyadi is still in the building
Player ratingsAndrei Alba spends the afternoon fouling
The words a physio says slowly. 82 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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persis will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Persis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitri 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 words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
Dimitri 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Sutanto Tan 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persis, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Arkhan Kaka will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Persis the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Persis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fantamady Diarra 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.