Marked for Egy Arhan
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2043
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Madura United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad3 Aug 2043
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Madura United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad3 Aug 2043
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Madura United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces3 Aug 2043
At 17 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad3 Aug 2043
Words at Madura United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Egy Arhan 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 Jun 2043
Obed Ponkap 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 Madura United can pretend not to have heard.
Squad29 Jun 2043
Egy Arhan keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Madura United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market29 Jun 2043
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad29 Jun 2043
Islom Ismailov 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.
Match27 Jun 2043
It needed Ordabasy Tagybergen to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Persib, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad29 Jun 2043
Sultan Mabkhout 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad4 Aug 2042
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Madura United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match2 Aug 2042
3‑0, and Mads Vestergaard took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Madura United tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings4 Aug 2042
A brace, and Mads Vestergaard takes the afternoon — 8.24
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mads Vestergaard provided it, and the 8.24 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad4 Aug 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad4 Aug 2042
Egy Arhan keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Madura United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Aug 2042
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Islom Ismailov and Madura United agree another 2 years.
Boardroom4 Aug 2042
The owner puts $66.3K into Madura United
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.
The terraces4 Aug 2042
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Market4 Aug 2042
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Madura United will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Jun 2042
7 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.
Market9 Jun 2042
“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 Madura United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match7 Jun 2042
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad9 Jun 2042
Words at Madura United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nodirxon Xabibullayev 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.
Player ratings9 Jun 2042
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Jun 2042
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mads Vestergaard, and the manager let it.
Market9 Jun 2042
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Islom Ismailov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad9 Jun 2042
Manor Dabbur has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Madura 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.
Squad9 Jun 2042
The plan did not have a place for Egy Arhan
Nobody at Madura United is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom26 May 2042
Pressure builds in the Madura United boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match24 May 2042
5 matches without a win for Madura United
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Madura United are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 May 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Madura United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 May 2042
Words at Madura United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nodirxon Xabibullayev 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.
Match24 May 2042
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad26 May 2042
Islom Ismailov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Madura 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.
In brief
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Squad
The manager makes an example of Egy Arhan
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Player ratings
Tal David runs at them all day