“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Persebaya 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.” Persebaya have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Amir Ganah 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 Persebaya know it.
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 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.
Ernando Ari 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
Jefferson 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.
Amir Ganah 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Jefferson 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 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 Persebaya, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Amir Ganah 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Njabulo Blom 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.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutMihailo Perović has become a man the manager trusts
“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; Persebaya 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 Persebaya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Njabulo Blom 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.
Everybody at Persebaya saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 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.
Something was said to Amir Ganah and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Amir Ganah is on it.
Maluku Utara United next, and one man in the Persebaya dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Persebaya asked and Persijap said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Njabulo Blom was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Persebaya ran out of time with Madura United. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
10 new faces, and Persebaya are still learning each other
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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Paulo Gali has come out of that comparison in the side, and Persebaya have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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 Amir Ganah is on it.