Al Duhail coach Christophe Galtier spoke to the media ahead of his team’s 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League Week 11 match against Al Rayyan.

“An important match awaits us, especially since it comes after our loss in the previous round against Umm Salal, so we must be at the top of our focus. We must enter the field with caution and be decisive in order to achieve victory.

“During our last match in the AFC Champions League, the players performed well and achieved victory, and now our focus is on the next match in order to collect full points and perform at a distinguished level.

“Fatigue happens to all clubs that participate in foreign tournaments, but the team was lucky after we regained the services of Karim Boudif and Luiz Martin in the previous match, in which we missed the efforts of Ruben Semedo and Khaled Mohammed after the red cards they received, and we are still suffering from absences, most notably that of striker Michael Olunga, who will take time to return again. But we will have the appropriate line-up for this match and choose players that will help the team achieve what it wants,” said Galtier.

Al Duhail player Karim Boudiaf said, “We have a match with a big team that has players with good levels, whether in defence or attack, and we will enter it in order to achieve victory and improve our position in the table, after we stumbled. In the last round, we lost to Umm Salal, therefore we must correct the mistakes and provide the level that guarantees us the full match points.

“I am happy about my return as well as that of Luiz Martin. We played together for such a long time and our camaraderie on the field turned into friendship, and we reached the stage of complete understanding. “Now we will play a dual role as we help our team achieve the desired results, and we also offer our assistance to the young players.”