The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at PSIM is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Nermin Haljeta was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.96. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Alfeandra Dewangga 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between PSIM and PSBS Biak, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Ramos Mingo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at PSIM pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
In brief
Player ratingsThe cruellest goal, and it is Aji Kusuma's
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.
$2.0K on the table at Semen Padang. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSIM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Ramos Mingo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Firman Irawan was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the PSIM dressing room was either.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Raka Cahyana is on it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSIM can pretend not to have heard.
“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; PSIM 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 PSIM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Wahyu Prasetyo has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at PSIM.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Firman Irawan to a room that had heard them before.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at PSIM is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Ramos Mingo 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout29 May 2028
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 1‑4 Firman Irawan left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Chen Yuhao
“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 PSIM, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alfeandra Dewangga 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Firman Irawan after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Franco Ramos Mingo is on it.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Persebaya next, and one man in the PSIM dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at PSIM would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“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 PSIM, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSIM this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Three points for PSIM, 1‑0 the final word against Madura United in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Anton Fase was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reva Adi Utama was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 PSIM know it.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
In brief
Player ratingsThe game went through Adrián Dalmau — 6.64
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Ezequiel Vidal's mistake
$150.0K 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. PSIM will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
He is going to Maluku Utara United, the club has $150.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSIM can pretend not to have heard.
Franco Ramos Mingo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Persebaya have kept their man, and PSIM go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rio Hardiawan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Franco Ramos Mingo 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at PSIM, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSIM can pretend not to have heard.
“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 PSIM know it.
Alfeandra Dewangga 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Ramos Mingo 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Wahyu Prasetyo
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason PSIM 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 had been thinking. Franco Ramos Mingo 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.
Everybody at PSIM saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Meykson 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Alfeandra Dewangga 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.
“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; PSIM are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at PSIM 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 PSIM 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.” PSIM have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 15 gone
That is the business done at PSIM 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Ramos Mingo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Persebaya have kept their man, and PSIM go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. PSIM will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
11 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Maluku Utara United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at PSIM is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSIM have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. PSIM will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at PSIM can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Li Suda is living that version at PSIM, and it tends to show in the first month.
The shirt still fits. Chen Yuhao is back at PSIM, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Li Suda is a PSIM player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Niek Janssen 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.
PSIM have made the call to Madura United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.