Al-Duhail regained the top spot in the Qatar Football League / QNB Stars League / after surpassing Qatar Club by three goals to one in the meeting that took place between them today at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in the seventeenth round.
Al-Duhail raised its score to 39 points, to return to the top of the standings, two points behind Al-Arabi, who had taken the lead after defeating Al-Sailiya 4-0 on Friday. On the other hand, Qatar Club’s balance froze at 26 points and fell to sixth place.
Al-Duhail imposed an absolute advantage from the start and exerted great pressure on his opponent, which forced him to commit a mistake, scoring the first goal when Tunisian Ferjani Sassi cut the ball from the outskirts of the area and passed to Kenyan Michael Olunga, who deposited it in the net in the tenth minute. The team of Argentine coach Hernán Crespo continued the advantage in search of consolidating the result, and created many opportunities that his players missed successively in front of the goal, as Al-Moez Ali penetrated and faced the goalkeeper and hit a powerful ball that passed near , while Ferjani Sassi did not behave well after Michael Olunga’s ball reached him meters away. From the goal, he shot next to . Qatar Club tried to build counterattacks in order to reduce the defensive burden on its players, but it lacked efficiency in light of the pressure exerted by Al Duhail players, which helped them quickly recover the ball and move forward, but without the ability to invest opportunities in order to secure progress with a second goal, to end the first half with a goal. Single.
Qatar Club showed a different picture in the second half through great offensive audacity, depending on the rapid transformations, so the Iraqi Bashar Rasen almost scored when Sebastian Syria’s pass reached him behind the defense, but goalkeeper Shihab Al-Laithi intervened at the right time in the 50th minute, before the player himself returned. To repeat the scene and storm the penalty area after Omar Al-Emadi’s pass, but Portuguese defender Robin Semedo turned the ball away for a corner in the 57th minute.
Al-Duhail wanted to increase the offensive effectiveness, so coach Hernan Crespo involved striker Mohamed Muntari, who almost boosted the score with a header, but his ball passed near in the 61st minute, while goalkeeper Sati Abbasi shone in deflecting Michael Olonga’s shot in the 70th minute, before Olonga returned to receive a long ball. From Argentine defender Federico Fernandez, he faced the goalkeeper and put the ball into the net, scoring the second goal in the 79th minute .. before substitute Khaled Mohamed added the third goal, taking advantage of the pass of the other substitute, Suhaib Janan, in the 90th minute.
In stoppage time, the referee declared the red card in the face of Al-Duhail player Louis Martin due to roughness, and in the last breaths, the referee awarded a penalty kick, from which Moroccan Badr Bannoun scored Qatar Club’s only goal in the 90 + 6 minute.
