It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damion Lowe 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
203% of the income goes out in wages at Dewa United
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.
Marked 8.80 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Alexis Messidoro is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Noah Sadaoui 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Damion Lowe 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.
Nobody at Dewa United 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.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alejandro Contreras 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.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.09 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Damion Lowe 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
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.
There were 86 minutes on the clock and Persis had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Dewa United did not stop to explain themselves.
“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 Dewa United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Vico 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.
Add another name to the list: Borneo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Edo Febriansyah. The answer from Dewa United has not changed — yet.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damion Lowe 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“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 Dewa United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Vico 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 name of Wahyu Prasetyo has come up in conversations Dewa United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damion Lowe 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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.66 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Noah Sadaoui 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 medical room confirms 37 days on the sidelines for Kodai Tanaka, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Damion Lowe 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Successful dribbles: 37. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dewa United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Dewa United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damion Lowe 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Dewa United has been clear about where Sonny Stevens stands, which is more than many ever get.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dewa United, another week without a signature from Alex.