It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Júnior Brandão wants continental football; whether Persebaya can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Persebaya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miloš Raičković 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Júnior Brandão. 1‑0 against Bali United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7.43, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Persebaya had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad22 Feb 2027
6 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.
“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.
The deal with Borneo is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it 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 Persebaya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$57.0K was the most the club would pay and Persis 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Persebaya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jefferson 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arema have kept their man, and Persebaya go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Francisco Rivera is on it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Persebaya will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Jefferson 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.
Persebaya have gone to Persis with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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. PSM have kept their man, and Persebaya go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody at Persebaya 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.
“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.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Persebaya had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Léo Lelis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Malik Risaldi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 Jefferson is on it.
In brief
The dugoutErnando Ari knocks on the manager’s door
Ernando Ari 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Persebaya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jefferson 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.
“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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Léo Lelis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Jefferson 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 Rick Jonkers was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Mihailo Perović is on it.
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.
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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ernando Ari trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 6.64 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ernando Ari 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Persebaya can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“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.
Jefferson 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Andi Wibowo on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ernando Ari trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mihailo Perović obliged against Dewa United. 2‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Persebaya.
“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 Persebaya, 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 $3.3K — a club that wants Asyraq Gufron enough to be asked twice.
Jefferson 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.
$33.0K 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.
$3.0K 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Toni Firmansyah did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.19 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The offer from Bali United for Paulo Gali was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.3K — a club that wants Ilhamsyah enough to be asked twice.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Vasco da Gama keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
$3.0K was the most the club would pay and Bali United 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jefferson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.