Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Ravy Tsouka 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.
Kazaki Nakagawa 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Semen Padang know it.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Bhayangkara Presisi? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
62 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Semen Padang lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
9 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.
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.
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.
Squad22 May 2028
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Semen Padang are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Semen Padang know it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Kazaki Nakagawa has come out of that comparison in the side, and Semen Padang have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The words a physio says slowly. 73 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.
$2.1M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Arthur Augusto was one of the reasons people came, and $2.1M does not replace that by itself.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Semen Padang can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Semen Padang training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ibrahim Al-Shuail 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akzhaiyk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Abdushukur Mahamatov and Akzhaiyk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Abdushukur Mahamatov is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.