Marked for Kiko
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Ernesto Gómez out for 96 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Persik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match18 Mar 2028
Still nobody has beaten Persik
The unbeaten run reaches 10. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Leo keeps Persik in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Boardroom20 Mar 2028
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Tempers go at Persik
Jon Toral 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Daler Tuxsanov 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.
Match18 Mar 2028
It finished 2‑0, and it was José Enrique’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Persik.
Boardroom20 Mar 2028
Wages eat 96% of everything Persik earn
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.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
A defender's afternoon for Kiko
Defensive actions: 16. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Sep 2027
Persik are in real trouble now
Position 18, 29 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Jon Toral in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Felipe Ospina
“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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Samuel Nnoli 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Too much change too quickly at Persik
12 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.
Match18 Sep 2027
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Market20 Sep 2027
He is 18, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market20 Sep 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jon Toral’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Felipe Ospina
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Persik
Jon Toral 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 Apr 2027
Leo 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match17 Apr 2027
Persik get the job done against PSIM
A 1‑0 win over PSIM, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Marked 7.77 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Persik had the best player on the pitch.
In brief
-
Player ratings
Jon Toral runs at them all day
-
Player ratings
Kiko shuts the door
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
Felipe Ospina damages knee ligaments — 59 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 59 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.
Match20 Mar 2027
The wait goes on for Persik
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Leo 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Persik
Samuel Nnoli 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.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of Jon Toral at his very best
Marked 8.78. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Persik.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Kiko gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Zidane Afreza
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Persik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match5 Sep 2026
No mercy from Persik
Bhayangkara Presisi will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Persik were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Adrián Luna, 34, rolls back the years — 8.91
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.91 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Persik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Sep 2026
The Zhetysu deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Rodrigo reports back to Persik with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Adrián Luna 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
One of those days for Jon Toral
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.56, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Persik
Vava Mario Yagalo 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
No hiding place for Kiko
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kiko, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces17 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 9 of the 32 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Jon Toral runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Jon Toral in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
Adrián Luna scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to PSIM, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Irkham Mila 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Irkham Mila dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
5.66 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
5.67 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. José Enrique scored in the 89th minute, Arema had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Persik took the lot.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jon Toral in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ezra Walian and Persik agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jon Toral gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match8 Aug 2026
Persik get the job done against Arema
A 1‑0 win over Arema, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Jon Toral runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
No place for Rodrigo in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Rodrigo has his answer from Persik; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad10 Aug 2026
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Persik will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.