Persib Loses the Derby, Bung Kus Points Out the Three Gaps Igor Tolic Must Fix

Minute 88 at Stadion Utama Gelora Bung Karno. The cross from the right flank of Persija Jakarta sailed past the shoulder of a Persib defender and dropped exactly where Ivan Mamut had positioned himself two phases earlier. The number-4 centre-back rose half a head higher than his marker. The ball brushed his hair, changed direction slightly, and went into the net. The entire stadium held its breath for one heartbeat, then erupted in the roar of tens of thousands of Persija fans.

I was not in Jakarta that night. But after reviewing the slow-motion footage three consecutive times, I realised what even the most loyal Persib supporters had to admit: this concession was not an accident. It was the systematic product of a systematic problem.

Two different players occupied the right-back position in this derby – Stjepan Loncar in the first half, Kakang Rudianto in the second half – and both were exploited in the same zone of the pitch, the same flank, the same gap that existed before a ball was kicked.

"My pen does not need ink; it only needs a gap." The gap at Persib had been drawn on the tactical map long before the referee blew his whistle for kick-off. And their opponents read it cleanly within ninety minutes.

This was the Indonesia Clasico, Matchday 2 of the BRI Super League 2026/27 season, played on September 12, 2026. Persib Bandung lost 1-2 to Persija Jakarta. Two days later, a football observer whose voice carries weight in Indonesian football circles published a list of three problems that head coach Igor Tolic must address before the season slips beyond control.

---

Mohamad Kusnaeni, known by his nickname Bung Kus, is not someone who routinely criticises a major club immediately after a derby. He is one of the most influential voices in Indonesian football analysis, with a personal YouTube channel attracting hundreds of thousands of subscribers and regularly cited by the sporting press. When Bung Kus chooses to speak – and to speak with the structure of three clearly defined problems – it is not impulsive. It is a deliberate analysis.

Bung Kus's video was uploaded on September 14, 2026, two days after the match. Within the first twenty-four hours, it attracted more than 200,000 views and was quoted by dozens of Indonesian sports outlets. The timing itself was a statement: he believed what happened on the pitch deserved serious analysis, not to be left to fade into memory.

But the alert reader will ask: why three problems, not two, not four? Why did he choose to publish at a moment when the team was still in the early weeks of the season? And most importantly, do the three problems reflect Persib's reality, or the limits of Bung Kus's own perspective?

On the Persib bench, Igor Tolic is at the beginning of his tenure. He inherited a squad built for title ambitions and considerable budget: Thom Haye, the Dutch-naturalised Indonesian midfielder; Sandy Walsh, expected to be the solution on the right flank; and Loncar, bringing Croatian experience to the right-back position. This is an expensive squad, with large ambitions, and no smaller pressure.

But Walsh was absent from the derby. The exact reason has not been disclosed by Persib. And this is where every football story becomes complex – because silence in football is rarely emptiness. It is usually filled with speculation, rumours, and sometimes the truth no one wants to speak.

---

I will begin with the first problem Bung Kus raised, because it is also the problem with the deepest structural impact on the entire team: over-dependence on Thom Haye.

Across the ninety minutes at SUGBK, Persib could not organise any structured attacking play each time Haye was isolated. This is not just Bung Kus's reading – it is the conclusion from my own four-time review of the footage, marking every Haye involvement. In the first half, when Haye received the ball centrally with his back to the opposition goal, Persib controlled the tempo. When he was tightly marked and his passing lanes back to the defence were cut, Persib became a directionless team – wingers stood still, strikers dropped deep to receive but produced no forward passing lanes.

Persib's system, as constructed, has a single conductor. When that conductor is muted, the orchestra falls silent. This is the classic signature of a team built around one creative player, rather than a distributed creative system.

Bung Kus made two demands regarding Haye and the team: first, Haye must play more aggressively – meaning receive more ball, absorb more pressure, occupy a more central role; second, Persib must reduce its dependence on Haye. These two demands pull in opposite directions, and Bung Kus did not propose a concrete reconciliation.

"The dressing room has no cameras, but it has whispers." I do not know exactly what Tolic told Haye during the half-time interval, or in the closed meeting after the match. But I know that any explanation Tolic offered had to confront a hard reality: if Persib wants to reduce dependence on Haye, they need another creative source. And in the current squad, that source does not visibly exist.

This is not a problem Bung Kus can solve with a YouTube video. It is a problem of transfer policy, of squad-building strategy, and of decisions that were made – or not made – before the season began. Some clubs build systems with three players capable of generating attacking tempo; Persib currently appears to have one. That is a major gamble, and the derby just proved the gamble has been lost.

Now to the second problem, perhaps the most clearly structural: the right-back position.

I reviewed the entire match with particular attention to Persib's right flank. My conclusion: this problem does not lie in the feet of any specific individual, but in how the entire team defends that zone. Two different individuals, two different styles, the same result.

In the first half, Loncar repeatedly faced one-on-one situations in positions where the wide midfielder did not track back to support correctly. Persija deliberately stretched the play wide, forcing Loncar to make decisions in tight windows. He lost most of these duels – not for lack of ability, but for lack of support from the line in front of him. The gap between Persib's right-back and wide midfielder in the first half was so wide that Persija's attackers could choose entry points without reaction.

In the second half, Tolic introduced Kakang Rudianto. The situation did not improve meaningfully. Kakang lacked the experience to handle pressure from behind, and he too received insufficient support from teammates. This confirms two truths: first, the problem lies in the defensive system covering that flank, not in the feet of individual players; second, Persib does not have a third high-quality right-back option in the squad – if they did, Tolic would have used them.

Bung Kus names Sandy Walsh as the solution. This is the most thought-provoking point in the entire analysis. Walsh is a naturalised player with international experience, expected to be a significant upgrade on the current options. But he was absent from the derby.

"Since the day I learned that dressing rooms lie through silence." The silence around Walsh's absence is a form of information. He may be injured – the most plausible scenario. He may not be fully registered – which would reflect an administrative problem the club must answer for. There may be an internal conflict – the least likely but not excluded scenario. What I am certain of: when a player expected to be the solution is absent from the most important match of the early season, and no explanation is offered, that silence becomes part of the story – and a part that can hurt the club more than any critical article.

The third problem Bung Kus raised – and perhaps the clearest from the footage – is how Persib conceded the decisive goal.

I marked the moment of Mamut's goal: minute 88. The cross came from Persija's right. Mamut rose at the edge of the five-metre box. The ball went in.

There are two ways to read this concession. First: it was an individual mistake by a centre-back who failed to mark properly in an aerial duel. Second: it was the inevitable result of a tactical pattern Persija had applied throughout the second half – attacking Persib's right zone, crossing into the box, building pressure on the back line, and waiting.

I lean toward the second reading. The evidence: the minute-88 goal was not the first time Persija crossed into that area. They did so at least six times in the second half, and each time created chaos in Persib's box. The goal was only a matter of time. When a team repeatedly crosses into the same area and eventually scores from it, that is not luck. It is a tactical pattern executed to its end.

This leads to a bigger question for Tolic. If opponents can read Persib's gap-map – the right flank, the space between full-back and wide midfielder, the inability to defend attacks from behind – then the next opponent can as well. In modern football, a gap discovered on national television quickly becomes a league-wide gap. Other coaches are watching the same footage, the same analysis, and they will not miss the chance to copy Persija's formula.

One more notable point: the goal came in minute 88, after Tolic had already made a personnel change early in the second half. This shows that change did not solve the underlying problem. It was a symptomatic intervention, not a structural one.

I also want to note a small but meaningful detail. VIVA – the main news outlet reporting on the match – recorded that Persib's right side improved somewhat after the break, but the problem resurfaced at the end. That sentence, however brief, is effectively a verdict: the improvement was temporary, the underlying problem remained.

Bung Kus also pointed out a detail many overlook: the fact that Tolic made half-time substitutions was itself a positive signal. Many coaches delay changes until too late. Tolic acted as soon as he identified the problem. This is the sign of a coach reacting actively, not passively waiting.

However, acting correctly is not necessarily acting sufficiently. The bigger question is: does Tolic have enough tools in hand to solve the problem, or does he only have enough tools to mask it temporarily?

There is a consequence Bung Kus did not mention but deserves attention. Both Haye and Walsh are naturalised players eligible for the Indonesian national team. If Haye continues to be isolated at club level, his form for the national team will suffer. If Walsh continues to be absent without explanation, the national team also loses an option at right-back. Persib's problem, in that sense, is not just a club problem – it is a problem for an entire national football system betting on a small group of high-quality naturalised players.

---

Before concluding that Persib is in crisis, I want to ask a counter-question: are we overreacting to a single match?

We are in week two of the season. A derby defeat creates loud noise – and I understand that – but noise is not a verdict. The sample size is tiny: one match, ninety minutes, one opponent. Not enough to conclude Tolic is losing control, or that Persib's squad is unfit for a long season.

Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that Bung Kus, however influential, remains an external observer. His analysis is one perspective, not absolute truth. The source analysis itself provides no concrete data – no pressing numbers, no inter-line distance metrics, no duel win rates, no heat maps. All conclusions rest on visual observation and personal experience.

And there is a factor observers often overlook: in any derby, psychological motivation plays a role no smaller than tactics. Persib may have lost a match they did not play badly in, simply because the opponent had higher motivation on the day. A derby loss does not equal a failed season. But it also does not equal everything being fine.

---

A derby cost three points. But the bigger question is whether Persib has enough time to patch the gaps that have been exposed before other opponents copy Persija's formula.

In modern football, a gap discovered is never only your gap. It soon becomes the league's gap – and opponents will add it to their scouting reports before every fixture.

The next three matches will show whether Igor Tolic is a skilled tailor – or merely someone trying to hide seams that have already come loose before the season ends.