Seventy-Seven Minutes of Silence and Four Goals: Persija's Lesson in Patience at Bantul

By Ryan Williams

Hook: Seventy-Seven Minutes, and One Question

Sultan Agung Stadium, Bantul. Evening of October 10, 2026. The home fans of PSIM Yogyakarta had not yet lost their voices, but the confidence that filled those voices in the first twenty minutes had thinned by the seventy-seventh. The scoreboard still read 0-0. Two words kept returning in my notebook that night: patience, and waiting.

I have watched matches for many years, and that experience has taught me that football is not a game of goals but a game of time. The side that knows how to break time in its own favour laughs last.

In the seventy-seventh minute, Alexander Jeremejeff scored. Then Stjepan Loncar in the eighty-first, Kwon Chang-hoon in the eighty-seventh, and Loncar again in the third minute of added time. The scoreboard settled at 4-0.

That 4-0 did not fool me, and I do not want it to fool you. Because the real story of this match began earlier, in those seventy-seven minutes of silence, when Persija Jakarta kept hitting a wall while Shin Tae-yong sat on the bench, recalculating.

From the Rajshahi print desk, I learned that silence also has a deadline.

Context: The Arithmetic of the Top Spot, and Shin Tae-yong's Doubt

Entering the fourth round of Super League 2026/27, Persija carried three straight wins. The fourth arrived at Bantul, and Shin Tae-yong's side now holds top spot with 12 points. PSIM Yogyakarta sit at the opposite pole: one point, fourteenth place.

On paper this should have been a lopsided contest. But paper does not play on grass. And this is where Shin's post-match words matter.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, Shin said he had expected PSIM to offer stubborn resistance, but his players performed far better than he had anticipated — pressing hard from the front line. Coming from a coach, that sentence is not routine praise; it is a kind of confession.

Consider it: a coach had calculated that his opponent would make life difficult. Even after a 4-0 result, he admits his calculation was wrong — not because he underestimated the opponent, but because he doubted his own side's patience. For a team that cannot score in the first half, scoring four in the second is not a natural event — it is the result of a decision, and that decision came from the bench.

Persija's foreign spine deserves separate attention here. Alexander Jeremejeff, Stjepan Loncar, Kwon Chang-hoon — these three names were involved in every one of the four goals. In this transfer-window era, when wage bills and agent phone calls increasingly cover the football on the pitch, a question rises: is this Persija success structural, or merely a temporary spark from three foreigners?

First Half: Cahya Supriadi's Wall

The warning came in the second minute. Franco Ramos Mingo's header moved toward Persija's goal but drifted wide. That single moment announced that PSIM had not come merely to defend.

Persija responded in the twelfth minute through Fabio Calonego, but his shot struck an opposing player. In the twentieth, Arlyansah Abdulmanan took a first-time shot that missed. Then Rayhan Hannan fired from outside the box, and there stood Cahya Supriadi.

PSIM's goalkeeper produced saves in the first half that deserve more than being buried under this scoreline — shots from outside the box, low balls into the corners, headers from crosses. He stopped them one after another, including a save just before the break that was perhaps the night's most under-discussed moment.

At half-time the scoreboard read 0-0. That zero is not Persija's failure; it is evidence of PSIM's organised resistance.

One thing must be said here. When we write about football in Bengali, we too often forget the defeated side, as if they existed only as backdrop to the winner's story. But without remembering Supriadi's saves, we cannot properly understand Persija's second-half storm. The firmer the resistance, the more significant the moment of rupture.

Analysis: Why Persija Did Not Score in the First Half

I have watched matches for many years, and one pattern keeps returning: when teams are frustrated by a deep block in the first half, their problem is usually threefold.

First, speed. Persija had the ball but the ball was slow. When full-backs advanced, the ball circulated sideways in central areas rather than forward. The back four of PSIM never had to split.

Second, timing of entry. Persija's attempts came from outside the box. Little penetrated inside in the first half, so Supriadi's situation stayed comfortable — he could see the shot and prepare.

Third, the rate of winning second balls. Rebounds often fell to PSIM feet, meaning Persija restarted attacks repeatedly, which meant more time, more breath.

These three problems point to one larger question: was Persija playing with patience, or losing it? To me, in the last ten minutes of the first half they leaned toward losing it. Players hurried, as if the goal were needed immediately.

And this is where Shin Tae-yong matters. Fifteen minutes at half-time is a small window, but what he did in that window turned the match.

Second Half: Changes, Rupture, and a Single Breath

Persija returned from the break as if written in another language. The ball moved forward with extra speed. Crosses increased from wide areas, but this time they were intelligent — low and quick rather than high and distant.

The biggest change: a determination to put the ball inside the box. In the first half Persija struck from outside; in the second they began to enter.

In the seventy-seventh minute came the reward. Alexander Jeremejeff scored. The significance of this goal is its timing — seventy-seventh minute, thirteen minutes plus stoppage left. The later a team goes ahead, the larger its opening; because the opponent is then forced to change plan, and it is in the act of changing that gaps appear.

What followed was a dam breaking. Loncar in the eighty-first, Kwon in the eighty-seventh, Loncar again in the third minute of added time. Three goals in four minutes — this is the picture of PSIM collapsing, and that collapse has a human explanation the scoreboard does not show.

Dignity: Standing Beside the Team That Broke

Those who stood so disciplined until the seventy-seventh minute suddenly conceded four — this is not a lack of quality. It is the result of circumstance. The first goal came when the team believed they would take at least a point. When that mental rhythm breaks, physical organisation breaks with it.

I am never in favour of writing down the defeated player. Rather, what must be said is PSIM's structural weakness — one point and fourteenth place is not a single night's failure but a signal of the whole season. The squad lacks depth, the bench's alternatives are limited, and surviving to the seventy-seventh minute meant spending energy at the maximum limit.

Seen structurally, PSIM lost to a lack of depth, not a lack of individual quality.

And those who came to the ground, who stood for seventy-seven minutes — their voices remain in Bantul's evening air. Even after the final whistle.

The scoreboard counts minutes, but the crowd counts breath.

Contrarian: How the 4-0 Scoreline Lies

Now to the part where I want to be careful.

Collective memory usually holds the scoreline. Years later someone will see the record and think Persija blew PSIM away. A four-goal margin means one-sided dominance — the natural conclusion.

But that conclusion denies the testimony of the seventy-seven minutes.

First, those who hear 4-0 and assume Persija controlled from the start should remember the first half produced no goal, and one of its best chances was PSIM's. Had that second-minute header been a fraction lower, the whole story might have changed.

Second, this kind of rupture is not sustainable across a season. Four goals in the final thirteen minutes is a magnificent achievement, but it is an event, not a model. Teams that score late as a rule do so on the back of deep benches, planned rotation, and repeatable quality. Thirteen minutes in one match proves none of that.

Third — and most important — Shin Tae-yong's own admission. He said his players performed better than he expected. When a coach says that, he is really saying: my team gave more than I imagined. That praises the team's character, but it also surfaces the truth that the first-half plan was not in the coach's hands — the rescue came from the players' individual will.

And in the transfer-window context, that distinction is enormous. Because individual will is an asset, and assets have a price.

Transfer Window: The Arithmetic of a Foreign Spine

In the current transfer window, clubs across the region are all doing the same maths — how many foreigners to keep, when contracts expire, what release clauses say. Persija's match is a clean sample of that arithmetic.

Alexander Jeremejeff, Stjepan Loncar, Kwon Chang-hoon — all three foreigners were directly involved in all four goals. Good news for Persija, but also a signal of risk. If a team's entire source of goals rests on three foreign feet, one injury, one suspension, or one contract dispute can change a whole season's equation.

The question rarely asked is this: is PSIM's problem that they have few foreigners, or that their foreigners have not fused with the team? Franco Ramos Mingo's second-minute header shows they too have foreigners capable of impact. The difference was coordination, not numbers.

A team's strength is not the number of its foreigners, but the web of trust woven between those foreigners and the local players.

And here Shin Tae-yong's philosophy is clear. He is building a side where foreigners are not merely solutions but part of the structure. The seventy-seven minutes of patience were probably his work. But a question rises too: how far are local players partners in this goal-machine — because in a long season it is the local spine that endures, while foreigners come and go.

In the pitch-side notebook I do not write goals; I write the silence before them.

Data and Structure: What Numbers Say, and What They Do Not

Here I should speak of my own data habit. I do not begin analysis with goal counts, because goals are the final effect, not the cause. I want to see where the ball circulated, who received it in which zone, and at which moment the resistance softened.

In this match what stands out: in the first half Persija's attacking centre was outside the box; in the second it moved inside. That simple shift created the difference in outcome. A shot from outside means time for Supriadi to prepare; a ball inside means time for Supriadi to decide.

Another thing — the goal timeline is itself data. Seventy-seventh, eighty-first, eighty-seventh, third of added time. These four timestamps say Persija's blow came exactly when PSIM's physical and mental strength depleted together. Three goals in the remaining thirteen minutes mean that once PSIM's resistance broke, it never re-joined.

But this data carries a large warning too. If a team's goals come exclusively in the last ten minutes, its attacking structure has an imbalance — either it is not good early, or it deliberately strikes late. Which is true for Persija will be revealed in the coming matches.

Persija's Next Question: How Believable Are 12 Points

Four straight wins, 12 points, top spot — the numbers are clean. But behind them hangs a question: can Persija show the same patience against stronger opponents?

So far, Persija's strength rests on two pillars — one, the ability to change decisions after the break; two, the individual quality of the foreign attack. Of these, the first is sustainable; the second is dependency.

If Shin Tae-yong can involve local players more in attack, Persija will not remain a one-round team. If not, one injury could return this sweet spell to hard reality quickly.

Takeaway: A Moment Held in the Frame

After the final whistle that night in Bantul, one image lodged in me. PSIM's players sat on the grass, some with hands on knees, heads lowered. The fatigue of conceding four and the pride of standing seventy-seven minutes were written on their faces at once. On the other side, Persija's players waved to the crowd, closing a night's story.

The gap between these two scenes is really the true subject of this match. One team is learning how to live patiently with time; the other is learning how not to break in the final thirteen minutes.

I have watched football for many years, and after every match the same realisation returns: the final whistle gives no answer, it only leaves a question. For Persija the question is — has this patience now become their habit, or was it merely one Bantul evening's glimmer? The answer will come on the pitch, in the next round, and beyond.

A football ground becomes a city's breath, and a breath is never the story of a single night.

— End —