Al Sailiya have been one of the best teams in this season’s QNB Stars League. Their performances and results proved that.

The Peregrines did very well in the first phase of the campaign, but they could not sustain the momentum in the second. They had occupied the fourth position for long, but are currently sixth with 28 points.

Al Sailiya, who have eight wins, four draws and nine defeats, were strongly tipped to finish fourth in the standings, behind Al Duhail, Al Sadd and Al Rayyan, and thus qualify for the Qatar Cup. But they were pushed behind by Al Gharafa and Umm Salal.

They were unlucky in many matches and Tunisian coach Sami Trabelsi, who has been coaching them for long, had often complained of the team’s off-the-field problems.

A series of negative results adversely affected the players’ mindset and they could not stay focused till the very end in many games.

That six of their eight wins came in the first phase speaks of their powerful show in the first half of the season.

Al Sailiya had 19 points after Week 11 compared to 28 now, and had scored 25 goals as against their present tally of 38. At the same time, they conceded 20 goals in 10 rounds compared to 17 in the first 11 rounds.

The team’s good performance in the first phase was due to many factors, such as stability on the technical front as the coaching staff have been with the side for pretty longer and the good performance of players like Wagner Ribeiro, Valentin Lazar and Temurkhuja Abdukholiqov.

So they did not make many changes during the winter transfer window in January and kept professional players Dragos Gregor, Lazar and Abdukholiqov. They had signed former Al Sadd player Nadhir Belhaj from Algeria and Abdulrahman Al Harazi on loan from Al Rayyan at the beginning of the season even though the latter returned to The Lions in the second phase.

Perhaps, the failure to strengthen the squad with fresh legs in the second phase proved to be their undoing. Al Sailiya’s only recruitment during the break was Yemeni player Alaa Al Sasi.