Marked for Sultan Omar
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 May 2031
10 matches without a win for Semen Padang
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Semen Padang are no longer polite ones.
Match17 May 2031
Dewa United ended it 0‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings19 May 2031
A debut Sultan Omar will not forget — 7.71
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.71 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
The terraces19 May 2031
Semen Padang are taken apart by Dewa United — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Squad19 May 2031
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.
Squad19 May 2031
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.
Squad19 May 2031
The manager makes an example of Rendy Oscario
“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.
Boardroom19 May 2031
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom19 May 2031
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Mar 2031
“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.
Player ratings3 Mar 2031
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match1 Mar 2031
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.
Squad3 Mar 2031
Jaime Giraldo 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.
Boardroom3 Mar 2031
The owner puts $305.9K into Semen Padang
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad3 Mar 2031
Ibrahim Al-Shuail 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.
Match1 Mar 2031
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 Mar 2031
A place in the month's best eleven for Evan Maulana
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Evan Maulana has come out of that comparison in the side, and Semen Padang have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad3 Mar 2031
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
Squad23 Dec 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rendy Oscario
35 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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Jaime Giraldo 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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Sultan Omar gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sultan Omar has just signed for Semen Padang, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Ibrahim Al-Shuail 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.
Boardroom23 Dec 2030
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.
Market23 Dec 2030
He is 20, and nobody at Semen Padang signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.