Al Wakrah coach Poya Asbaghi spoke to the media ahead of their 2024-2025 season Ooredoo Stars League Week 15 match against Al Duhail.

“Our optimism is due to the great enthusiasm with which the players performed in their recent training and the character they showed during these days as they worked very hard, and I believe that this enthusiasm is very important before this strong match.

“Al Duhail have had a great season so far and the way the team has been built has been very strong, with a solid defence, attacking and skillful players and of course, with Hakim Ziyech now joining, they have an extra dimension in attack, so it is a team with a lot of strengths. But at the same time, we know that if we do our job and defend well, we also have players who can hurt them, and hopefully that is what will happen.

“I have been with Al Wakrah for only a month and I can only talk about the period I spent here, and of course when you do not achieve the start you want in the league, it always affects the players’ confidence. The best way to restore confidence is to achieve victories, so for us we just have to continue working hard, and when the victories come one after the other, I am sure that we will see the true level of this team,” said Asbaghi.

Al Wakrah player Nabil Erfan said, “We had a good training session before facing Al Duhail and the players were at the highest levels of focus, so we hope that we will be successful and be able to achieve the desired result against Al Duhail.

“Al Duhail have high-level attackers, but I believe that if we follow the coach’s instructions and the players perform their roles correctly, we can stop them and outperform them.”