Al Ahli player Mohamed Diame spoke to QSL Website on the 2019-20 season Media Day organised by the Qatar Stars League for QNB Stars League players.

“After playing in England for 10 seasons, mostly playing in the Premier League, I felt it was right moment for me to come to Qatar. The experience that I gathered by representing English teams Wigan Athletic, West Ham United, Hull City and Newcastle United is invaluable and I believe I can transfer that to the QNB Stars League and help the young players in Al Ahli.

“As a player personally, my target is winning the league. But collectively as a team, we want to do better than last season. 

“Yannick Sagbo who plays for Umm Salal and Mehdi Benatia of Al Duhail are my friends for a long time. They gave me good feedback of Qatar football, so I made the move.

“I owe a lot to present Belgium national team coach Roberto Martinez as he gave me a break in England for the first time, with Wigan 10 years ago. That was a big turnaround in my career. Then I wanted a new challenge.

“After the first game in the QNB Stars League which we lost to Al Arabi, we’ve realised that we need to be more competitive. In football, if you don’t give your 100 per cent, you can’t achieve anything. We couldn’t show our quality on the pitch. We want to get our campaign back on track sooner,” said Diame.