Al Wakrah coach Marquez Lopez spoke to the media ahead of their 2022-2023 season QNB Stars League Week 9 match against Al Arabi.

“The team’s preparations for the Al Arabi match in particular and for the rest of the league matches in general were very good.

“We went through a long period of preparations in order to prepare the team for the resumption of the league. We started preparing for the Al Arabi match specifically and were fully prepared to resume the league last week against Al Shamal, but the match was postponed. Now, our focus is again on Al Arabi match.

“The team is always looking for victories and although we are well aware that maintaining the team’s presence in advanced positions is very difficult in view of the fierce competition from all teams, we always have the desire to achieve victories and positive results.

“Of course, I will miss the efforts of the trio with the national team, but I realize that these players did not participate with us in the past rounds, therefore the most prominent absentee will be Omid Ebrahimi. But we succeeded in including Algerian Adlene Guedioura and I hope he will be successful with us. There were also some young players who were in training and I used to count on them a lot. But they are also with the national team and cannot play with us. Now I do not have many players. I lost five players at once, not just three,” said Marquez.

Al Wakrah player Murad Naji said, “I have confidence in the team’s ability to make a strong comeback to the league championship against Al Arabi. Everyone is keen on that despite the long break.

“Al Arabi are on the top of the league table, so it is certainly a very good team. From my point of view, their last match did not reflect the real performance of the team because the break was long. All teams are not fully ready for the first match after a long break. They are more ready than us because they played in the eighth round.”