Umm Salal produced a strong performance with a thumping 5-0 victory over Al Shamal in their Qatar Stars League encounter today at the Suhaim bin Hamad stadium.

Umm Salal players ensured that they took control of the match early on. In the 23^rd minute former Turkish international Tuncay Sanli found the breakthrough to give his team the lead. 

Pejman Mohammadreza then doubled Salal’s lead in the 35^th minute and with each passing minute, it looked like Shamal couldn’t muster any sort of response to the superior offence of their opponents.

The second half saw the script being repeated and Shamal’s defense remained as porous as before. Salal’s Ismail Mahmoud took advantage of the shaky defense and scored twice in the second half – in the 53^rd and then in the 66^th minute. 

Salal’s Jeremie Aliadiere, who came on as a substitute in the 69^th minute, wrapped up the humiliation for Shamal by scoring in the 87^th minute. Salal had 55 per cent of possession but such was their dominance that they had managed to deny Shamal even a single shot on target. 

Salal is one of the teams who are looking to finish in the top 4 and they have had a decent run of results under coach Bülent Uygun. Shamal, on the other hand, have failed to win a single match so far.



Al Samal have even brought in new coach Dragan Cvetković, having sacked Dutchman Silvio Diliberto who had helped the team gain promotion into the QSL this season. But as is clear from this match, Shamal needs a lot of work to be done if they are to survive relegation this season.

Salal will be happy with their performance which sees them in fifth place in the table. They are just one point behind Qatar SC in the rankings.