Al Arabi players during a training session.
Doha: Al Arabi will take on Al Wakrah in Week 9 of the QNB Stars League (QSL) with both the teams eyeing full points at Saoud Bin Abdulrahman Stadium today.
Al Arabi are second in the standings with 19 points behind Al Duhail, with six victories, one draw and a loss while Al Wakrah are placed third with 15 points and have a postponed match from Week 8 against Al Shamal. They have won four matches and drawn three. Al Wakrah are the only team that has not lost so far in the season.
Both teams prepared for the clash with great motivation, especially Al Arabi, who continued their good form in the league by beating Al Ahli 2-1 in the last round, which helped them stay on top of the standings.
Al Wakrah know fully well that they cannot afford to drop points if they are finish in the top four as Al Duhail are fierce competitors and trail leaders Al Arabi only by two points.
“The team prepared well for the Al Wakrah match. We performed well in the Al Ahli match, with some negatives, which we worked on in order to avoid them in future and improve performance in the upcoming matches,” Al Arabi coach Younes Ali said yesterday.
“Al Wakrah are a strong team that made great performances in the league and have distinguished players, and have been performing well under Spanish coach Marques Lopez,” he added.
Al Wakrah coach Marquez Lopez said: “The team’s preparations for the Al Arabi match in particular and for the rest of the league matches in general were very good.”
“We went through a long period of preparations in order to prepare the team for the resumption of the league. We started preparing for the Al Arabi match specifically and were fully prepared to resume the league last week against Al Shamal, but the match was postponed. Now, our focus is again on Al Arabi match,” he added.
“The team is always looking for victories and although we are well aware that maintaining the team’s presence in advanced positions is very difficult in view of the fierce competition from all teams, we always have the desire to achieve victories and positive results.”
