Al Gharafa coach Pedro Martins spoke to the media ahead of their 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League Week 21 match against Al Wakrah.

“We were looking forward to winning the Al Markhiya match, and despite that, the players showed a positive reaction in training and continued to work with great effort and the highest level of concentration. The positive thing is the return of a large number of players who were absent in the last period, and the session witnessed the return of Homam Al Ameen, who can participate with us in the next match, in addition to the readiness of both (Seydou) Sano and Ferjani Sassi.

“And Ahmed Al Janahi continues to regain his readiness and may play the next match and Ahmed Alaaeldin, despite the injury he sustained in the last match, will be ready for the game. Against Al Wakrah, all of this news is good for us, which means that the team will be almost complete despite the continued absence of Abdullah Yousef and Saifeldin Hassan, who are with the Under-23 team, and this makes us stronger and therefore we will have more options in this match.

“Al Wakrah are a very good and fighting team and it will be a difficult match, and everyone sees the strength of the competition in advanced positions. Competition for the league title is still mathematically valid despite the difficulty of the task and, unlike the title, competition for the rest of the top-four positions will continue in the next two rounds. As for as we are concerned, we have a strong game ahead of us. We are facing a direct competitor, so we are required to be highly focused and play with our full strength.

“Everyone will fight to achieve titles for the club. We have two remaining matches in the league that we must win, and we are also about to compete in the Qatar Cup and Amir Cup, and all of these are goals that we will fight to achieve,” said Martins.

Al Gharafa player Jang Hyun-Soo said, “We continue to work well during this week in preparation for facing Al Wakrah. We are making a great effort in training. We are very confident in our capabilities as players. We know very well what we must do and I hope that we will achieve victory in the next match.

“Al Wakrah are one of the best teams in the league currently and they are an organized team with distinguished players and a strong personality. I hope our fans will attend in large numbers and provide support and assistance to the players.”