Jon Toral's Birmingham City Reflections from Indonesia
It is nearly midnight in Surabaya, a sprawling coastal city in East Java, when a familiar face appears on the other end of a video call. The 31-year-old looks fuller in the face and thicker in the beard than the young man once adored by Birmingham City supporters. Despite the inky black skies behind him and the clatter of family noise in the background, it is unmistakably Jon Toral.
He might be 7,500 miles and seven hours away, but the difference is noticeable. There is a maturity and serenity where once there was insouciance and, later, anxiety. Toral had two spells at Blues, one in 2015/16 when he charmed the birds from the trees and forced many to break the golden rule of never falling in love with a loan player. He had another in 2020/21 which no one enjoyed as much.
The First Spell: A Dream Season
First, the good. Toral was 20 years old, had the touch of an angel, was bilingual, and played with a grace that justified his status as one of the bright young things coming through at Arsenal. In eight months, he scored eight Championship goals, provided four assists, and played with a quality that cash-strapped Blues could only dream of calling their own.
With Toral and Clayton Donaldson combining in attack, Gary Rowett’s team defied financial gravity to threaten a play-off challenge. The youngster cleared up at the end-of-season awards, skipped off with an armful of trophies, and returned to the Gunners, leaving Birmingham City in an ownership choke-hold. It had been enjoyable, but it was over.
The Second Spell: A Struggle
Or so we thought. In 2020, Toral returned to St Andrew’s, only five years older but weighed down by repeated injuries. The question wasn’t so much ‘How high can he go?’ as much as it was ‘Can he even get back to former heights?’ Birmingham City had become the fiefdom of Xuandong Ren and Aitor Karanka, a joyless axis that added nothing but more misery to a club that burned through managers, had been deducted points, and continued to hand out ridiculous contracts to undeserving players.
Ren and Karanka rolled the dice on a former favourite who managed just 49 Championship games in three seasons before being released by relegated Hull City. Everyone said the right things, but Karanka never had faith in Toral, and Toral didn’t seem to have faith in his body. A relationship that was once so easy had become a struggle.
Candid Reflections
Today’s Toral, who has recently signed for Persik Kediri in the Indonesian Super League, is remarkably candid about that. “Most good memories are from the first stint, obviously,” he tells the Keep Right On podcast. “I think that was probably to date, if not the best, up there with my best season in my career. I think many things clicked in that season and all the memories I have, all the people I met, the team that was built, the way we played – everything was just so enjoyable.”
“The second stint was tougher, harder and was different as well I think with Covid and everything, without the fans in the stands, it was not what I remembered. Different times, different squad, different everything – and a different Jon as well, if I'm honest.”
The Honeymoon Season Details
Rowett had taken over from Lee Clark the previous year and turned an 8-0 home defeat by Bournemouth in October into a top-ten finish by May. Blues didn’t have much, but they’d somehow trodden the tightrope of going into receivership in Hong Kong to force Carson Yeung’s hand, without registering an insolvency event in the UK that would have triggered a ten-point deduction.
That summer, Toral arrived on loan, Jacques Maghoma and Maikel Kieftenbeld permanently, and the vibe around the club was reasonably positive, even more so when he scored in his first two games and seemed to have a genuine understanding with Donaldson.
“I think with my first loan season at Brentford in the Championship went well considering I was 19-years-old and I participated in a lot of games. But I wasn't really a starter in the team. I was coming on most games and helping from the bench and being part of the squad.”
“So I think for that next season, the next step was trying to consolidate myself in a starting team in the Championship. I was able to do that with Birmingham, I think when you're at Arsenal, the goal was always to shine and do well on those loans, to come back and claim a chance in the first team.”
“It's always going to be tough but that season for me was perfect. I think what stood out was the day-to-day basics more than the games. It's just the connection that team had, the fluidity. The only regret was that we didn't have enough to make it to the playoffs. I think that team deserved to that season.”
Career Challenges and Injuries
Unfortunately for Toral, his campaign ended early, cut short by suspension after seeing two yellow cards against Burnley – and then by a hamstring injury. The first of his career and an issue that was to stalk him mercilessly. The first half of the 2016/17 season was spent in Spain with Grenada and the second at Rangers. Neither move really caught light in the same way.
However, Hull had seen what he had done at Birmingham 12 months earlier and offered him a three-year deal and paid Arsenal a £3 million fee that might as well have been £300m to Blues. He made only 16 Championship starts in his first season, initially under Leonid Slutsky and then Nigel Adkins – and zero the following year. In his one season with Grant McCann, he started just eight league games as a knee injury ate into his time. His star had waned. The Tigers were relegated, and the former Arsenal hopeful was without a club.
“I think my biggest change was mentally,” he continues. “I became a dad as well with my time at Hull. Mentally, I struggled with a few injuries at Hull and couldn't get going.”
“From what I had lived at Birmingham and what I was living at Hull, where I wasn't capable of of performing at that level, it was frustrating for me.”
“More than physically, mentally it was tough to know that you've done it before and I wasn't being capable of doing it again.”
Return to Birmingham and Decline
With best intentions on both sides, Blues offered him a lifeline: “When Birmingham calls you back, you want to try and go back to the place I felt so well and I felt so loved and so good around everyone in the club and the fans and everything and try and reignite that level and that, I don't know, sensation of being a game changer again.”
It never happened. As he said, different times, different club – different Jon. Actually, that’s not strictly true; it happened once, on a Wednesday night in Reading when what looked suspiciously like the old Toral lit up a lockdown Madejski Stadium. A clinical finish from the D, followed up by a sweeping left-foot curler from outside the box hinted at an upturn.
Karanka, who couldn’t find his best XI, left him out of the next game, and that was as good as it got. In the summer of 2021, Blues declined to take up the option in Toral’s contract and instead spent months trying to persuade Alen Halilovic to come back. That brace in Reading would be the last goals Toral ever scored in English football.
Finding Happiness Abroad
While Bowyer’s Blues were playing golf in Troon, Toral received an offer from Greek top-flight team OFI, based on the island of Crete. “I had it clear in my mind that I had to leave England and try something new because I wasn't finding myself, I wasn't happy at home as well being a new dad and I wasn't the person I want to be.”
“So I felt that I needed to change something in my life to find myself again and I did that going to Greece. I don't regret that decision because I found myself again in Greece and I enjoyed everything that I wasn't enjoying anymore in England.”
Sunshine replaced the gloom, and it felt like a weight had been lifted, but he insists he didn’t rediscover the ‘old Jon Toral’. “Not the old one, because I don't think we ever go back to what we were, but a happy Jon Toral and that's all I was seeking.”
“But I didn't know I was seeking that at some point. That's the problem. We lose a bit of perspective, a bit of what really is important in life, in football.”
“Sometimes the focus is too much on the career, or ‘I should be there, I should do this’, or you push yourself to think that you deserve more than what you really are capable of, or at that moment in time the reality has changed.”
“It's a different, you have to accept that. As soon as you accept that, then you realise that it's a different time in your life. You're a parent now, there's other things. I think when you realise that and you can just focus on the basics, finding peace and happiness, I think everything else follows.”
“I think that's what happened when I arrived in Greece. I found a happy man and that made a better footballer on the pitch.”
Current Life in Indonesia
After three seasons with OFI, he moved to the Indian Super League and Mumbai City, who were then owned by the City Group organisation that also has Manchester City, Melbourne City, and New York City FC. He spent 18 months living in India’s most populous city before the league began to fall apart. In January this year, it was clear he needed to move again, and for the Torals, including two sons, that meant upping sticks to Indonesia.
He’s still not old in footballing terms, but he is at peace with what he’s achieved in his career. “Going to Mumbai was to try and fight for titles and while doing that getting to know a new culture and new lifestyle. I think it's enriching for the kids as well to see other parts of the world and other ways of other lifestyles.”
“At the same time, for my wife and myself, I think it's an eye-opener as well, I think that enriches you culturally as well.”
“I think we found the right place now in Indonesia and the plan is to try and help the team here move forward on the table and hope for a good season as well.”
“But yeah, that's the plan now and keep enjoying, welcome a new baby girl as well. I think life is smiling to me and to my family and that's what's important really.”
“I wouldn't change anything from my journey. I think whatever has happened in the past has led me to the place I am now – and the place I am now is a happy man, a happy husband, a happy father and a happy footballer as well. I wouldn't change a thing.”
And Birmingham? “It's a team that made me fall in love with them the first time around and that love doesn't go away, even though the second stint wasn't as successful for myself or for the team. I think my feelings for Birmingham are still there because of that first season.”
What do they say? Never fall in love with a club when you're on loan?
