Al Shamal coach Poya Asbaghi spoke to the media ahead of their 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League Week 7 match against Al Duhail.

“A very strong contest against the defending champions awaits us and it will certainly be a big challenge for us given the strength of the rival players. But, I am very confident that Al Shamal players will rise up to the challenge. They will bear the responsibility placed on them and they have shown great determination to be back on the right track.

“We realize the strength of Al Duhail, but we will play to our best abilities to achieve a positive result and to score the three points.

“Al Shamal are coming from a loss against Al Markhiya in the previous round and seek a course correction. We gave a good performance in the last match, but we could not translate that performance into a positive result and we lost in the end,” said Asbaghi.

Al Shamal player Jassim Al Hashemi said, “There is no doubt that the confrontation will be difficult against a well-known team that includes players of the highest level, but that will not prevent our keenness and endeavour to achieve a positive result in order to compensate for the recent results, which were not up to the expectations of fans and our management.

“We will do our utmost to put on a distinguished show against Al Duhail and come out with a positive result from the match. This is our most important goal.”