The countdown to 2021-2022 QNB Stars League has begun even as the clubs are eagerly continuing their preparations for the season’s competitions after returning from their overseas camps, where they sought to achieve maximum technical and physical benefits for the players.

Against this backdrop, we are highlighting the pre-season preparations made by each of the 12 teams.

AL WAKRAH

Al Wakrah’s ambitions, in the third season since graduating from the Second Division, will be to present a distinguished level and occupy a better position in the QNB Stars League table than their eighth-place finish last time around. They are all set to go under Spanish coach Marquez Lopez.

Position

Al Wakrah will not want to repeat the scenario of last season when they suffered in the last rounds and faced relegation threat at one point despite having a good start to their campaign. The team management supported the team with by recruiting Ali Awad, Mohammed Emad, Abdulghani Muneer, Yassin Abdullah, Khaled Muneer, Khaled Youssef and Abdulrahman Fahmy.

Technical stability

Al Wakrah clearly benefited from some previous mistakes, especially with regard to the technical staff, and renewed confidence in coach Marquez Lopez and his technical staff for the fourth consecutive season.

Marquez factor

Spaniard Marques started his mission with Al Wakrah in January, 2019, when they were in the Second Division and succeeded in helping promote them to the QNB Stars League and achieved a sixth-place finish.

New contracts

Al Wakrah retained most of their foreign professionals from last season, namely: Algerian striker Mohamed Benyettou, Malian midfielder Ousmane Coulibaly, who are playing for the third consecutive season with the team, and Brazilian defender Lucas Mendes, who is playing for the second season in a row. New contract was signed with midfielder Iranian Omid Ebrahimi, the former Al Ahli player. They also have Angolan attacking midfielder Gelson Dala.

At the local level, Al Wakrah renewed the loan contract of Mohammed Ayyash from Al Duhail and Ismail Mahmoud from Umm Salal, and signed Saud Al Nasr, Al Sadd player, and Hazem Ahmed, Al Duhail player.

Turkey camp

In preparation for the new season, Al Wakrah held their European training camp in Turkey from 1st to 16st August, and played some strong friendly matches.

Before the Turkey camp, they played two friendly matches, first with Al Duhail, which ended 2-2, and then with Al Bidda, which ended with the Blue Wave winning 3-0.

During the Turkish camp, the team played friendly matches and was very strong, and the first was against the Omani Olympic team and ended in a 1-1 draw, and in the second it beat the Bodrumspor team 1-0, and in the third it beat Al-Arabi Al-Kuwaiti also 1-0.

League campaign

Al Wakrah will start their QNB Stars League campaign against Al Arabi and will then play Al Rayyan, Al Khor and Al Ahli in that order in the first four rounds.