6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Semen Padang can tell you which week it ends in.
“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 The request is on a desk at Semen Padang, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Semen Padang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Semen Padang told Ripal Wahyudi something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The offer from Persita for Rui Rampa was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Semen Padang can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Ravy Tsouka 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.
Rui Rampa 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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Semen Padang lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match3 Apr 2027
Diego Maurício wins it after the whistle should have gone
95 minutes played. Diego Maurício found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Borneo went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Semen Padang will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
3 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.
99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Semen Padang lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Semen Padang will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jaime Giraldo 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Semen Padang will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Sogdiana for Guillermo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Semen Padang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Semen Padang training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rosyad Setiawan 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Persis will make the call about Achmad Iqbal Bachtiar this week. Semen Padang have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.