Dony Tri Pamungkas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 May 2030
Yin Congyao 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maluku Utara United can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Stefano Kurniawan after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Maluku Utara United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Maluku Utara 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.
Arema next, and one man in the Maluku Utara United dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Dony Tri Pamungkas 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.
“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 Maluku Utara United know it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ben Dajani is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Maluku Utara United have done the hard part with Persita, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Dika Nurdiansyah 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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Maluku Utara United will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Maluku Utara United asked and Bali United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Irkham Mila 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Maluku Utara United can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
A last season at home is what Lucas Cardoso is after
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Thiago Batista has, at Maluku Utara United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maluku Utara United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Teuku Ichsan and Maluku Utara United agree another 2 years.
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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Thiago Batista is 19, and Maluku Utara United have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Cao Haiqing is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.