48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persib lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 The request is on a desk at Persib, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persib this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Berguinho 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
The terraces21 Jan 2030
Supporters make their feelings known about Tshiamo Masisi
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Persib would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persib can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persib this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Berguinho 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.
Uilliam Barros 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.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Words at Persib training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luciano Guaycochea 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persib will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Uilliam Barros 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Persib training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luciano Guaycochea 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 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.
Marked 5.55. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Castel. 1‑0 against Dewa United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it 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 Persib this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persib 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Dion Markx 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persib can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Persib is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Persib will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
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.