Yousef Muftah has been playing an important role with top QNB Stars League side Al Gharafa.

The defender, a consistent performer with The Cheetahs, gave his takes on various topics in an Exclusive Interview with qsl.qa during the 2020-21 season Media Day.

Excerpts:

What changes do you see in the competition?

I think this year is going to be difficult for all the teams. All teams brought new players this season, especially a lot of them weren’t in this situation last year. So I think, about my team, we’re focusing to be one of the top sides in the league. If we don’t get the title, then we’ll focus on the second or third position. But our main target is to be the league champions.

The rest of the teams had good preparation, especially when we see the last five pending rounds of last season were good preparations for this year. We can see everybody is ready for the competition.

Do you think this season will be better for you?

Well, we’re still at the beginning of the season. We can’t say it’s different. But the most important thing was to start the league in a good way. Then, you can get points in the beginning, which can help you at the end of the season. Last year, we played against big teams in a good way, but we lost a lot of points against teams that were lower than our level. We’ve to avoid it this time. If we get those kind of points as well, we can be on top, of course.

How do you keep yourself fit?

We’ve good staff, physical and technical. They’re doing a good job. We started the season early. We went on quarantine for almost three weeks. We also trained well individually. We had done a great pre-season work. Statistics show that. We’re doing a great job physically and technically, and everybody is ready. And thank God, we don’t have any injury. This is how we can move forward.

Yousef Hassan has had a long (shoulder) injury layoff. He should be joining the team soon. Rest all players are fit and ready to go.

What’s your message to team-mates?

My message is always do your best when you’re on the field. Even if you lose one game or win, don’t stop your ambitions. You’ve better target for yourself. At the end of the season, you should have satisfaction with yourself and also with team-mates.