Umm Salal and Al Gharafa teams will open the matches of the seventeenth week of the QNB Stars League, which will be held today, Friday, at Thani Bin Jassim Stadium in Al Gharafa Club, at five o’clock in the evening. Umm Salal enters the match with 13 points in the eleventh place, with a goal difference from Al Rayyan (tenth), and seeks to maintain the distinguished level in which it appeared against Al Shamal in poned match from the tenth week, during which it won with a goal without a response, while Al Gharafa will try to compensate and regain its victories. After losing to Al-Arabi with a goal without a response, his score stopped at point 23, in sixth place. Pedro Martinez: We are fighting for the square. Portuguese coach Pedro Martinez, Al Gharafa coach, spoke about the Umm Salal match, and in light of the lack of time after the last Al Arabi match, saying: It is normal, so if you want to play at a high level, you must get used to playing consecutive matches at close times. This is normal, and therefore I do not complain about this matter because we are in the Emir Cup and we are fighting in the league for the square. Talal Al-Karkouri: I hope we will appear like the previous match. Moroccan Talal Al-Karkouri, coach of Umm Salal team, stressed the importance of facing Al-Gharafa. He said in the press conference before the Al-Gharafa match: All matches are of utmost importance to us, given the current position of the team in the standings table, and certainly a difficult confrontation awaits us against a strong team. And he continued: I hope that we will appear with the face that we appeared in our last match against Al-Shamal.
