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SEPTEMBER
We give up on hiring a youth coach as the money required just isn't there. We've now got 12 players making 350k a week for a total of 4.2M a week that is basically wasted, so it's an expensive lesson ... Sutanto continues to improve and took another significant step this offseason. At 18 years old, he isn't far behind the top players at the club now.
I also decided to give out a couple of pro contracts to our younger players. Obviously this won't help the finances any, but if we want to get anything out of these guys we need them training. AMC/MC Bangun Priyono, who was so impressive last year in our Indonesian Cup game and has consistently been a threat in intra-squad friendlies, will be our emergency midfield backup. He'll take 750k with a 5% annual raise. The second one is DL Widodo Faizal. He's our most polished young player and is actually a serviceable backup right now, and left back is one of our weakest depth positions. But the real kicker here is that his evaluation has been upgraded this year to the point where Bob thinks he has Super League potential: this is the first time he's said that about any of our players. He'll take 600k and a 5% annual raise, which makes me wonder if I should have lowballed him even more.Regardless, these two signings will cost up less than 1M combined, a bargain I would say.
We lost another 560M last month. The financial situation is getting worse not better, at least for now. A few weeks I suspended all scouting except for upcoming opposition, as I don't plan on adding any new players until next year anyway.
9.4 -- Indonesia puts up a good fight against Australia before falling 2-1 on a late score.
9.11 -- While I'm sure it will be an unpopular choice with the players as always, we select minimal competition bonuses. Anything we can do to reduce costs simply has to be done. Sutanto and Herlan were the most disappointed as was the case last year. The former is of course the biggest concern, but hopefully we'll be able to keep him in the fold as we have the last couple years. If not, well ... no player is bigger than the club. After all, does anybody even really care or remember what happened to Uropmabin? We brought in Bayhaqi and time marches on.
9.13 -- We'll keep our field narrow as that plays to our strength through the middle.
9.15 -- A consortium of businessmen is planning a takeover and will soon approach Wahyu Fadii with an offer, according to the Indonesian Soccer Gazette. I'm thinking just now this is karmic retribution for a very charmed pre-season so far: not a single major injury to anyone on the senior squad.
9.30 -- Lots of bids for Sutanto so far this year, but this time we have an offer on the table for 145M plus a loan-back clause at the end of the year. We could use the money of course, but I'm not letting him go -- he's a huge part of our future. There are now nine clubs interested in him overall, but he shows no interest in wanting to leave.
OCTOBER
We haven't heard anything the last couple of weeks on the bid one way or the other. The board asks for my 'continued patience while they deal with the speculation'. Like I have a choice. We lose another 199M, at least it's not as much as we were losing. That's with another 60M in appearance fees coming in. Debt stands at 4.25B.
10.1 -- We start off the month with our first injury of significance. Iwan Akbar's competitive debut will wait now as a strained wrist during training will cost us him for two weeks, meaning he'll miss at least our first match.
10.4 -- We announce season ticket sales of 84, up from 64 last year so a healthy increase in our fan base is expected.
10.8 -- Another Sutanto offer, this one with 42M up front, and another 142 spread over the next two years. No. He's not leaving. Deal with it.
I got asked a bunch of dumb questions(the only kind the media knows, really) in a pre-season presser, and we are now under transfer embargo until the takeover bid is resolved.
My favorite Q/A: Do you have a favored side of eleven prepared for the coming season? I mean what the heck am I supposed to say? No, I've had most of these guys for a year or two and just spent two months working with them in training and friendlies, so naturally I haven't the foggiest notion who I'm going to play?? Get a clue.
They also thought Ewangin was the top key to our season. Um, no. Yogi is the man here, to the extent there is one. He did just score 18 goals last year you know.
And with that, another season is upon us. Tactically we'll remain with the 4-3-2-1 Narrow that worked well for us later year. The overall balance of talent in the squad is quite similar as we mostly replaced the departing with upgrades and that's about it.
RANKINGS
Indonesian Super League -- 22nd(+5)
Premier Division -- 32nd(+4)
First Division -- 79th(+4)
Second Division -- 105th(no change)
Indonesia -- 152nd(+22)
United States -- 37th(-17)
Persigubin -- 81st(+56!!)
Professional Approval -- 19.5%(+4.4)
Local Name Recognition -- 53.1%(+9.4)
Global Name Recognition -- 5.6%(+5.1)
Persipura remains the top club in Indonesia in the new rankings. The biggest rises and falls are clubs well known to us. Persemalra fell like a rock with their relegation after nearly promoting disaster ... and we are the biggest risers! There aren't any lower-division clubs above us now. There are still 13 First Division clubs ranked higher, and are only second-to-last(a bit above Persebo) in the Premier Division. Meanwhile, Indonesia seems to be improving across the board.
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