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.
Bali United paid $58.0K and Persik took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Three points for Persik, 1‑0 the final word against PSIM in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Persik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reno Piscopo 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 Persik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Persik have made the call to Fortuna Sittard. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Persik have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Syahrian Abimanyu has gone, the accounts have $480.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Bali United paid $480.0K and Persik took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Reno Piscopo 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Persik have made the call to Fortuna Sittard. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Imanol García 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Andi Hidayat has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andi Darmawan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dedi Maulana 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.
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Wahyu Septian after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
0‑3 to Persib, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Reno Piscopo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.