Al Gharafa beat Al Markhiya with a hard-fought 1-0 win in Week 18 of the 2022-2023 season QNB Stars League at the Al Gharafa Stadium on Sunday.

The closely-battled see-saw affair saw the long deadlock being broken with a late 88th-minute Al Gharafa goal from Ahmed Alaaeldin.

A minute later, Al Markhiya’s Ayoub Azzi received a red card (after a second yellow) as he was fouled for bringing down rival team’s Mehdi Tahrat while going for a header inside the penalty area.

The win saw Al Gharafa move on to 29 points from 18 matches, while Al Markhiya stood on 18 points from 17 games.

The match saw many absorbing moments as both teams tussled to score, but lacked finishing.

Alaaeldin was at the centre of many chances for Al Gharafa right from the start. In the ninth minute, he could not get to the ball after a curling kick from Farid Boulaya created the chance inside the box.

In the 13th minute, Alaaeldin dived low to a superb free-kick, but he missed connecting the header by inches while in front of the goal.

Another big chance came in the 30th minute after a goal-mouth melee and in the end Alaaeldin got the chance to execute a telling kick, but the ball went on to hit the left goal post and roll away.

Similarly, Al Markhiya rued many of their own chances. In the 17th minute, Jameel Al Yahmadi’s kick sailed over the goal.

In the 22nd minute, Azzi made a foray down the left beating a defender, but his kick was well stopped by Al Gharafa goalkeeper Yousef Hassan.

Later in the 60th minute, Al Markhiya’s Ayoub Assal made a fine run down, but missed the target in the end.

With both teams scrambling towards the end, Yacine Brahimi kept his cool making a fine move inside the ‘D’ before providing the ball to Alaaeldin to do the needful in front of the goal and he obliged.