Marked for Brian Fatari
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 May 2028
Ernesto Gómez breaks a bone — 28 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match20 May 2028
No end in sight to Persik's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Persik has to find a result from somewhere.
Match17 May 2028
The small margins put Persik out
Out, 1‑1 to Persebaya, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad22 May 2028
Jon Toral 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 Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Persik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daler Tuxsanov 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.
Squad22 May 2028
The manager makes an example of José Enrique
“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.
Player ratings22 May 2028
A performance of 8.14 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Apr 2028
A fracture rules Ernesto Gómez out for 57 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match22 Apr 2028
The wait goes on for Persik
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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
José Enrique 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 Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Persik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Meilana 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Brian Fatari 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.
The terraces24 Apr 2028
Everybody has an opinion about Adrián Luna
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces20 Dec 2027
Anger at Persik spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad20 Dec 2027
A fracture rules Imanol García out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Persik
Jon Toral 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Ahmad Agung gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ahmad Agung has just signed for Persik, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Leo 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.
Market20 Dec 2027
The best deals are the ones the accountants never notice. Ahmad Agung arrives at Persik with his wages the only cost and something to prove the only clause.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.41, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match7 Aug 2027
Nobody wants to play Dewa United right now
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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Alex 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 Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ricky Kambuaya and Dewa United agree another 3 years.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Aug 2027
5 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
8 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Sonny Stevens has given nobody the chance.
Market9 Aug 2027
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Rakasurya Handika is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Sonny Stevens: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over Arema, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Dewa United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Dewa United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Noah Sadaoui 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 Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damion Lowe 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Ivar Jenner
At 22 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Sonny Stevens
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A brace, and Alexis Messidoro takes the afternoon — 8.62
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexis Messidoro provided it, and the 8.62 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
23 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Damion Lowe 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Vico runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ady Setiawan, and the manager let it.
Market17 Aug 2026
He is 18, and nobody at Dewa United signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.