Al Wakrah's Mohamed Benyettou celebrate after scoring against Al Gharafa yesterday.
Doha: Goals from Mohamed Benyettou (46) and Abdulrahman Mohammed (62) powered Al Wakrah to an impressive win over Al Gharafa yesterday as the latter lost another chance to return to the top four in the QNB Stars League (QSL) standings.
Al Gharafa, one of the strongest teams this season, are targeting a spot in the AFC Champions League next year with a top-four finish in the QSL, but yesterday's defeat in their Round-21 match badly affected their chances.
Yesterday's match was originally scheduled for April 6 along with other Week 21 games, but was rescheduled in view of Al Gharafa’s play-off with Uzbekistan’s FC AGMK in Doha on April 7, for a berth in the 2021 AFC Champions League group stage.
Their defeat in yesterday's match also means that the battle for the third and play-off spots in next AFC Champions League is wide open.
Champions Al Sadd have already booked a place in the continental event while Al Duhail only need one point to go through. Fifth placed Al Gharafa, one behind fourth placed Qatar SC, have one more match remaining while Al Arabi and Al Ahli also stay in contest for the play-off spot.
Yesterday's win stretched Al Wakrah's unbeaten run to four matches, having drawn with Qatar SC goalless, beaten Al Sailiya 1-0 and held newly-crowned champions Al Sadd to a 1-1 draw in Weeks 17, 18 and 19 respectively.
They also improved their points tally to 22 with their sixth win of the season.
It was The Cheetahs’ eighth defeat. They had lost 1-3 to Al Ahli in Week 19.
Al Gharafa had beaten Al Wakrah 1-0 in the first leg of the League.
