DOHA: Former champions Al Gharafa are eyeing a return to winning form when they take on Al Wakrah at Lekhwiya Stadium today.
El Jaish hammered Al Gharafa 4-1 in round five of Qatar Stars League (QSL) last week.
“The loss in the last game makes it important for us to bounce back. The mental aspect is crucial,” Al Gharafa coach Pericles Chamusca said yesterday.
“We have to come back with good football in the next game. I am expecting a good performance and a win,” Chamusca added.
“I know the history of Al Gharafa with Al Wakrah last season. I know that they have three good players especially in the offence.
“They will look to attack a lot. We have to play on the flanks if we want to break up their organised play. And we have to be in our best preparation if we want to win against this team,” he warned.
Chamusca said not everything had gone according to plan.
“As I said before some circumstances affected our preparations. You all know that we had a long break for two weeks. Al Gharafa were able to train with all players only for a few days,” Chamusca said.
“So I think our team needs more time for the players to play together in order to find the rhythm that we want to see in our team. When players play more together, the performance will improve.
“But also I know the quality of my players is helping me a lot,” he said. “In this season only Al Rayyan haven’t lost a match so far. We beat Al Arabi who beat Lekhiwya. In the end it’s a matter of points,” Chamusca said.
“It will be impossible to find a team that will win all games. We want to take points but I confirm that our first target is the top four and we will do our best to get there, remember that we have a game in hand,” Al Gharafa coach said.
Al Wakrah coach Jose Mauricio said lack of adequate training time was on his mind.
“Our preparation was a little bit different this time. We had a short period between two games.
“Both teams had this problem. So our preparation was focused mainly on recovery and on the mental aspect of the players,” Mauricio said.
“We are playing a very difficult team. They are strong but they also have weak points and we will try to use that to get a victory tomorrow,” he added.
“I think we have quite a deep problem in Al Wakrah. We have come to resolve those problems. We need a lot of positive things in order to come back. Unfortunately, the results are affecting all analyses.
“Until now we haven’t seen an opponent better than us. Al Sadd was better than us only during certain pockets during the game. We were a strong team but we need to be competitive,” he said.
Al Sailiyah beat Al Wakrah 2-1 last week.
“We always had possession of the ball and also tried to attack but unfortunately our mistakes proved to be too costly. We haven’t been able to use the mistakes of the team and convert those into positive results for us,” Mauricio said.
“We have had only three months to work with the team. We know that day by day, game by game, we will see the good work that we have done so far,” Mauricio said.
“Al Wakrah are always used to fighting to save themselves from relegation. As I said before A; Wakrah have deeper problems. And also don’t forget that the players in my squad haven’t been brought in by me.
“We have also had some injuries during crucial matches. We have played just five games, we have 21 left.
We have the ambition to change the situation. There’s only one secret. And that is to work seriously every day and try to give our maximum to make the team better,” the coach urged.
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