“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Bali United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Persijap is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Hugo Samir 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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sho Yamamoto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aqil Savik signs something — a contract at Persijap or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Jan 2033
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
“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 Persijap know it.
Persijap have made the call to Bali United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Something was said to Marcus Taylor and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tegar Infantrie trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rakhmatsho Rakhmatzoda signs something — a contract at Persijap or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persijap can pretend not to have heard.
Romi Cohen 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.
“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 Persijap know it.
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Persijap this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
Squad10 Jan 2033
Sho Yamamoto 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Persijap, another week without a signature from Aqil Savik.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Persijap can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persijap 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. Firman Ramadhan has, at Persijap, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The shirt still fits. Firman Ramadhan is back at Persijap, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Persijap are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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.
Squad6 Dec 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout6 Dec 2032
The manager has not finished forgetting Aqil Savik's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
In brief
The dugoutPablo Fernández loses the manager who believed in him
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Nov 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
“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 Persijap know it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Parvizjon Umarbaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Persijap has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Persijap know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Nazriel Alfaro’s negotiating for him
0‑3 to Dewa United, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
5 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.
Pablo Fernández 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 6.64, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Sagiv Weissman has, at Persijap, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The mood at Persijap has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Persijap can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 19 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Persijap is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
“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 Persijap know it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Jemil Al Rahman has, at Persijap, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Persijap has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad30 Aug 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
Persijap asked and PSM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: PSIM have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yonatan Benayoun. The answer from Persijap has not changed — yet.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Persijap will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Persijap has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad23 Aug 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persijap lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yonatan Benayoun will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Persijap the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everything agreed with Bali United, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Rakhmatsho Rakhmatzoda commits to Persijap for another 4 years.
Squad9 Aug 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persijap lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rakhmatsho Rakhmatzoda and Persijap agree another 4 years.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Persijap will quote 17 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Persijap asked and PSM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad19 Jul 2032
Alexis Gómez 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.
Nazriel Alfaro 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Persijap can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Persijap can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persijap can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Persijap have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Successful dribbles: 30. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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 Persijap know it.
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Persijap lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1 for Yishay Brosh, marked 7.74, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rakhmatsho Rakhmatzoda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Minute 89, against PSBS Biak, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Half the programme played, position 12, 16 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Persijap has been clear about where Marco Silva stands, which is more than many ever get.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Persijap know it.
Squad3 May 2032
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Gómez 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.
Marked 8.39 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Hugo Samir 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 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.
The dugout3 May 2032
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Aqil Savik
Player ratingsTri Setiawan beats them one at a time
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
1 for Yishay Brosh, marked 7.74, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Persijap is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aqil Savik trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Borneo in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Persijap 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.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad22 Mar 2032
Alexis Gómez 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Parvizjon Umarbaev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Persijap.
The dugout22 Mar 2032
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Interim Coach, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Persijap have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Marcus Taylor
7.82, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
Dor Melikson 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Persijap can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Interim Coach could afford to be generous.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Out, 1‑2 to Maluku Utara United, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Persijap have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persijap can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Alexis Gómez 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.
“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 dugout8 Mar 2032
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Persijap scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
1 for Nazriel Alfaro, marked 7.30, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“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; Persijap are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Yishay Brosh and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad1 Mar 2032
Alexis Gómez 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 given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Persijap until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
10 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bagas Nugroho has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Wahyu Jaya is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Hanif Pratama has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Persijap had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Bali United, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The phone has started ringing about Yonatan Benayoun again, and this time the name on the line is PSIM. Persijap are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Alexis Gómez 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.
Tri Setiawan 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.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marc Campos, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Jan 2032
Aqil Savik is still being punished for one mistake
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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nazriel Alfaro has just signed for Persijap, and for once the answer mattered.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Persijap, and it is not being withdrawn.
The deal with Persija is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Persijap are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Words at Persijap training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tri Setiawan 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 manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tegar Infantrie trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexis Gómez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Dor Melikson 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 manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Hafizh Rizkianur was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Persijap would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Persijap, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Romi Cohen 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.
7 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.
The dugout24 Nov 2031
The manager has not finished forgetting Aqil Savik's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Persijap can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Persijap can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Hafizh Rizkianur 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.
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.
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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Tegar Infantrie's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
In brief
BoardroomNobody arrives at Persijap until somebody leaves
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Persijap told Arlyansyah Abdulmanan something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Persijap would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rakhmatsho Rakhmatzoda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A mark of 7.73, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout29 Sep 2031
The manager has not finished forgetting Aqil Savik's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persijap this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persijap will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persijap can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Sep 2031
Alexis Gómez 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Persijap were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.