Marked for Maouri Simon
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Dec 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmad Noviandani
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bali United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market30 Dec 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bali United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom30 Dec 2030
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad30 Dec 2030
Teppei Yachida 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.
Squad30 Dec 2030
Words at Bali United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diego Campos 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.
Squad30 Dec 2030
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Bali United can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
The manager makes an example of Maouri Simon
“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 dugout30 Dec 2030
Althaf Alrizky has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Bali United 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.
Market30 Dec 2030
The Diego Campos story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diego Campos signs something — a contract at Bali United or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Dec 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmad Noviandani
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bali United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market23 Dec 2030
Hansamu Yama has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bali United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market23 Dec 2030
“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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Teppei Yachida 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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mohammad Khanafi has just signed for Bali United, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diego Campos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Dec 2030
Diego Campos gets picked when it counts
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 Diego Campos is on it.
Market23 Dec 2030
Experience through the door at Bali United
Mohammad Khanafi arrives at 33 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The dugout23 Dec 2030
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Dec 2030
51 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bali United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom2 Dec 2030
Andi Supriadi has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Bali United can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom2 Dec 2030
The Bali United board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market2 Dec 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bali United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad2 Dec 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thijmen Goppel commits to Bali United for another 2 years.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Favio Quiróz 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.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Gil Meidan 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.
The dugout2 Dec 2030
“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.
Market2 Dec 2030
No place for Maouri Simon in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Maouri Simon has his answer from Bali United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Nov 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmad Noviandani
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bali United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market11 Nov 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bali United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Nov 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bali United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Nov 2030
Words at Bali United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Favio Quiróz 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 dugout11 Nov 2030
Thomas Lam has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Bali United 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.
Boardroom11 Nov 2030
Nobody arrives at Bali United until somebody leaves
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Bali United this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
The dugout11 Nov 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maouri Simon, and the manager let it.
Market11 Nov 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dimitar Mitkov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Sep 2030
Ahmad Noviandani damages knee ligaments — 135 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 135 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.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market9 Sep 2030
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bali United people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market9 Sep 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bali United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.85, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market9 Sep 2030
Maouri Simon hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bali United can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
Up for the corner, and Lior Mashansky delivers — 7.93
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Lior Mashansky scored, was marked 7.93, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad9 Sep 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bali United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom9 Sep 2030
Wages eat 140% of everything Bali United 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.