73 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Semen Padang lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Kazaki Nakagawa and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Semen Padang training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ravy Tsouka 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 words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
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.
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.
Zidane Afandi 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 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.
In brief
The dugoutAde Kristiano asks for a word with the manager
95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Semen Padang lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Achmad Iqbal Bachtiar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Semen Padang the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ravy Tsouka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“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; Semen Padang are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Semen Padang they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ângelo Meneses was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Dedi Wardana after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Kianz Froese 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 could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Jaime Giraldo 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.
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Semen Padang training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rosyad 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Persija in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Marked 5.26. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ravy Tsouka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Zidane Afandi 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.
PSM next, and one man in the Semen Padang dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Bali United go through and PSIM go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
$31.0K on the table at Dewa United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$32.0K was the most the club would pay and Semen Padang were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
PSIM asked and PSBS Biak said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Semen Padang can pretend not to have heard.
Ricki Ariansyah 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.
9 combined actions and 6.81. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Asyraq Gufron, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Dedi Wardana was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Semen Padang dressing room was either.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 107th minute. Persija will replay every second of the added time for a week.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $33.4K — a club that wants Asyraq Gufron enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Semen Padang this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
PSM go through and Semen Padang go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Match22 Aug 2026
Diego Maurício wins it after the whistle should have gone
90 minutes played. Diego Maurício found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Persis went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.01 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Ravy Tsouka 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Feyenoord have kept their man, and Semen Padang go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ricki Ariansyah 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 number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $34.1K — a club that wants Asyraq Gufron enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bhayangkara Presisi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mauricio Vera 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.
A loan enquiry to Racing Santander: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Bhayangkara Presisi have made the call to Twente. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Successful dribbles: 34. 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Andri Jaya 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rachmat Pratama 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. Stefano Irawan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dimas Hardiyanto is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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 Semen Padang know it.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Aditya Putra 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dedi Kurniawan 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. Syahrian Arhan 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.