A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Dewa United will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexis Messidoro. 2‑0 against Persib, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Paulo Ricardo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.75 on the card, and the Dewa United support went home talking about one name.
Squad15 Feb 2027
7 new faces, and Dewa United are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
16 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Egy Wibowo kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutSonny Stevens has become a man the manager trusts
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Noah Sadaoui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexis Messidoro 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.
“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 Dewa United know it.
Dewa United have made the call to Persib. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Dewa United will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Persija in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dewa United can pretend not to have heard.
Noah Sadaoui 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.
Add another name to the list: Persija have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Taisei Marukawa. The answer from Dewa United has not changed — yet.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Dewa United can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Persik have kept their man, and Dewa United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Dewa United than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dewa United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
BoardroomOpen for business: Dewa United enter the window
73 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dewa United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Noah Sadaoui was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexis Messidoro 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.
80 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dewa United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Johnathan wants continental football; whether Dewa United can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Noah Sadaoui 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.
Alexis Messidoro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
“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 Dewa United know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.
Noah Sadaoui 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dewa United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dewa United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Nick Kuipers
SquadNick Kuipers is the talk of the training ground
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
161% of the income goes out in wages at Dewa United
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.
Muhammad Natsir and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alexis Messidoro has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dewa United have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nobody at Dewa United will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Alexis Messidoro 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Johnathan wants continental football; whether Dewa United can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Dewa United can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Egy Wibowo to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Dewa United will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Semen Padang next, and one man in the Dewa United dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
7 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Bali United were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noah Sadaoui 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rafael Struick has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The phone has started ringing about Yofandani Pranata again, and this time the name on the line is Persijap. Dewa United are listening politely and promising nothing.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ivar Jenner was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.07. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Egy Wibowo could afford to be generous.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Dewa United can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sonny Stevens and Dewa United agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Noah Sadaoui 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.
Nick Kuipers 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Ivar Jenner has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Add another name to the list: Persijap have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Muhammad Natsir. The answer from Dewa United has not changed — yet.
Minute 90, against PSIM, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.