Doha: Al Sailiya take on Al Kharaitiyat at the QSL, with the match taking place at the Al Ahli stadium on today evening.
Sailiya are struggling for form this season as they have only two points from six games. They will be hoping for their first win of the season against fellow strugglers Kharaitiyat.
Sami Trabelsi, the head coach of Sailiya knows the importance of this game. “This is a big game for us. It’s very hard as we have seven games in one month. We are working on correcting mistakes and getting points. Kharaitiyat is a good team and I know the new coach very well,” he said
“We have to respect Kharaitiyat even though they didn’t get good results but they are a good team and they play with discipline and I believe that both teams are equal. We will try to win to motivate us for the rest of the season. We are not getting the desired results but we are playing well,” added the Tunisian head coach said.
Trabelsi stressed the importance of the three points. “We need these three points as they will be the first three points for us. Sure we have problems in the offensive department. The only bad game for our defence was against El Jaish. But in the five games, we have proven that we are one of the best defences in the league. The offence is the issue because we only scored three goals and then in one game we scored 4 so we need to work on that.”
Kharaitiyat recently appointed a new manager, Ahmed al-Ajlani from Tunisia, after the departure of Amar Osim. The new coach will bring with him a hunger to win as he hopes to bring in some positive results.
Tawfiq Zaboub, assistant coach of Kharaitiyat spoke about the transition from Amar Osim to Ahmad al-Ajlani as head coach. “As you know we are in transition after Amar Osim left the club and now we have Ahmad al-Ajlani as the coach. He asked the players to train with full concentration. The players were under stress and they now feel the difference and they feel better psychologically. The new coach will have the same technical staff and we will help him.”
“Al Sailiya also had a difficult campaign as they are not used to being in such a position. They will like to improve but it will not be against us. We only have 4 points and we can’t lose points anymore,” added the assistant coach of Kharaitiyat.
“We are focusing on giving confidence to the players and to allow them to play freely. They had many directives and restrictions before but not anymore. We focused on the defence in training because we don’t want to concede so many goals,” said Zaboub.