38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. PSM lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gledson and PSM agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Luka Čumić 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Mohammad Khanafi has his answer from PSM; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
In brief
The dugoutKadek Raditya has become a man the manager trusts
132 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. PSM lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Léo Lelis has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means PSM have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 139 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Koko Araya was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alcione Milano have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
PSM have made the call to Maccabi Tel Aviv. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
35 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
The dugout28 May 2029
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 0‑2 Rizky Jaya left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Prince Kallon is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 118 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.
Dewa United go through and PSM go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Squad21 May 2029
Luka Čumić 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.
Yuran Lopes 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.
Persija left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout21 May 2029
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Rizky Jaya to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at PSM 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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. PSM told Dan Weissman something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The words a physio says slowly. 127 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 given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match12 May 2029
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for PSM. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad14 May 2029
Luka Čumić 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.
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. PSM lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Wan Xiang did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Aloísio Soares 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.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
142 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. PSM lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Čumić 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sheriddin Boboev. 2‑1 against Persijap, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings30 Apr 2029
Luka Čumić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Aloísio Soares 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and PSM will not try tonight.
Luka Čumić 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at PSM, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sheriddin Boboev signs something — a contract at PSM or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at PSM 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout9 Oct 2028
Somebody else is better right now than Prince Kallon
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
In brief
The dugoutDan Weissman knocks on the manager's door
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Čumić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one PSM will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sheriddin Boboev signs something — a contract at PSM or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Althaf Alrizky trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luka Čumić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Accrington Stanley have kept their man, and PSM go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Aloísio Soares 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 86. Persis had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“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 PSM, and it is not being withdrawn.
PSM asked and Lumezzane said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Aloísio Soares 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.
Marked 8.41 — 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.85, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Aloísio Soares and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Dušan Lagator 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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The unglamorous genius of a well-written contract. Jacques Thémopelé is somebody else's player now, and $47.0K has arrived because the people who sold him thought further ahead than the transfer window.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. PSM told Koko Araya something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 PSM, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luka Čumić 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.
Aloísio Soares 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 not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Kodai Tanaka was the best thing in any of them.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dušan Lagator 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 86. Bhayangkara Presisi had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It needed Kodai Tanaka to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Bhayangkara Presisi, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.