Al Duhail coach Christophe Galtier spoke to the media ahead of their 2024-2025 season Ooredoo Stars League Week 14 match against Umm Salal.

“I was not happy with the result of the last Al Rayyan match. The result was not good for us, in addition to the performance in general despite our numerical superiority during the match. I think our team was not decisive and we were not at our best and we were tired, especially on the offensive side. I spoke with the players and expressed my disappointment with the performance we have been providing recently, which does not match our ambitions and desire to win the title. It is not easy, but we have to regain confidence and the required performance in the matches.

“We started reviewing the mistakes of the Al Rayyan match during the preparations for Umm Salal and we tried to alert the players to the need to focus and regain confidence again in order to return to impose our control at the top.

“Of course, Al Gharafa’s victory in most of their matches made them advance in the standings and chase us at the top after reducing the gap to only two points with our team. As I mentioned earlier, during the last three matches, we did not perform at the required level, except for the match against Qatar SC. The attacking line did not provide the required performance and effectiveness, but we are currently, to confirm, still maintaining the top spot in the general standings since the beginning of the competition until now.

“I noticed since his (Bautista Burki) arrival that he is a distinguished goalkeeper and has ambition. He works well and performed well during the matches he played in the QSL Cup, and I believe that in the future he will have a great role on the pitch,” said Galtier.

Burki said, “I am ready along with my team-mates to face Umm Salal, which is an opportunity to return to the usual performance and improve the recent results to maintain the top spot in the standings.

“We will work hard to win the match after we prepared well during the preparations with the technical staff. We will try hard to win and achieve a positive result.

“Joining Al Duhail is an important step in my career and my presence here gives me a great opportunity to develop and achieve more successes.”