Marked for Zidane Afandi
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
Kianz Froese 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 Semen Padang this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Semen Padang training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ravy Tsouka 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 dugout28 Dec 2026
This is not rotation. Rosyad Setiawan has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Semen Padang is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 119% of everything Semen Padang earn
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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Something was said to Zidane Afandi and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
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 Samuel Simanjuntak is on it.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Rui Rampa knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rui Rampa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market28 Dec 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Semen Padang know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Nov 2026
“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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
This is not rotation. Rosyad Setiawan has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Semen Padang is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
124% of the income goes out in wages at Semen Padang
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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ngan Cheuk Pan commits to Semen Padang for another 3 years.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Ngan Cheuk Pan 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Kianz Froese makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The formation has left Ngan Cheuk Pan behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Semen Padang will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Zidane Afandi
“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.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Persis waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Semen Padang is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match12 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Semen Padang
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Semen Padang are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Sep 2026
67 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ravy Tsouka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Semen Padang asked and Flamengo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match12 Sep 2026
1‑2 to Persib, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Zidane Afandi 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Semen Padang are still strangers to each other
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.