By Joe Koraith/Doha

It was a frustrating evening for Qatar SC in the Qatar Stars League yesterday as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Al Kharaitiyat.
Qatar SC endured a horrible start to their QSL campaign this season. They lost their first two matches 5-0 and 3-1 which lead to the sacking of their then high profile coach Ivan Hasek. Iraqi Radhi Shenaishil was brought in to arrest the decline and he produced one of those magical turnarounds which made everyone sit up and notice the team.
They went on a four-match unbeaten streak which included a 5-1 thrashing on Al Gharafa but that momentum was broken with the loss to El Jaish. They got back to winning ways against Shamal but then lost to Al Sadd who are on a roll this season.
It was in this stop start mode that Qatar SC came into yesterday’s match looking to get back to climbing up the table but they met a resilient Kharaitiyat who have won just two games but also managed to draw three.
Qatar SC got an early goal through Ali Awad in the first minute of the game and looked set for another dominating performance but while they had major share of the possession, they couldn’t break down the Kharaitiyat defence.
It was a game which saw a set pattern with Qatar SC building an attack but failing to find the back of the net and then Kharaitiyat attacking on the counter. Qatar SC looked the more threatening of the two but their opponents were getting bolder on the counter and that is how the equaliser was scored.
In the 40th minute Kharaitiyat attacked on the counter which saw Issiar Dia being brought down inside the box by Qatar SC’s Medhat Mostafa and though it looked like the ball had hit the striker on the hand, the referee awarded the penalty. Waleed Jassimy stepped up to take the penalty and he slotted the ball into the left corner and put the match level in the 43rd minute. The celebration was a unique one with Jassimy taking out his shin pad and taking a selfie of the team. Wonder how many megapixels it has!
Just five minutes after Kharaitiyat got a great chance to take the lead when M Sadd took advantage of a sloppy pass from the Qatar SC defence and he passed the ball to Hasan Mahmoud who was in a good position inside the box to score but shot wide.
The second half saw Qatar SC show more intent and dominate possession but couldn’t score due to their own inability to convert the moves into goals and also due to the Kharaitiyat goalkeeper Khalifa Ndiaye who kept coming out to pluck the ball out of the many corners that Qatar SC generated.
The closes Qatar SC came to taking the lead was in the 87th minute when Cho Youngcheol supplied a great pass to Hamdi Harbaoui but the goal machine, who has notched up nine goals so far, scuffed his shot wide.
Qatar SC coach Shenaishil would have been hoping for a better performance from his team considering the form that they had been showing recently against weaker teams but they came up short against a determined Kharaitiyat side and will have to be content sharing the spoils.