Igor Rodrigues 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Muhammad Toha has written the date down.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persita lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persita this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bimo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ryuji Utomo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persita lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Javlon Guseynov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Muhammad Toha has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Ramón Bueno
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Igor Rodrigues 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ryuji Utomo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Charisma Fathoni has his answer from Persita; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persita 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 Charisma Fathoni 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 Ryuji Utomo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Two goals and a mark of 9.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at AZ is saying, and nobody at Persita is enjoying the guessing.
Igor Rodrigues 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandre Ramalingom. 3‑1 against Borneo, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persita this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dejan Račić, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Stefano Jaya to a room that had heard them before.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Persita training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Muhammad Toha 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.