Yousef Msakni struck late as Al Arabi rallied brilliantly to overcome a 0-2 deficit and beat Al Ahli 4-3 in the QNB Stars League on Thursday night. Msakni, who had earlier scored a 51st-minute penalty, found the net again two minutes from regulation time as Arabi went top of the table. With Al Duhail in action against Al Gharafa late last night, Arabi have a slender one-point lead but have also played a game more.
For Al Ahli, who are seventh, Yazan al- Naimat’s (seventh & 29th minutes) brace had given them lead. But Arabi hit back with goals from Abdullah al-Muraisi (45+1), Omar al-Somah (45+5) at the stroke of time. In the second half, Msakni put the Dream Team ahead but Ahli captain Ali Qaderi scored an equaliser in the 75th minute.
It was absorbing action right from the word go as Al Ahli attacked in the opening minute as Sofiane Hanni beat the rival goalkeeper, but the ball hit the cross bar and fell safe.
Al Arabi retaliated the next minute as Al Somah took a potential strike, but it was staved off by the rival custodian. In the sixth minute, Al Somah was again face to face with Al Arabi goalkeeper Jassim al-Hail, but his kick hit the goalkeeper’s shoulder and moved clear.
Soon after, Yazan al-Naimat produced a double delight for Al Ahli as he first broke in to dribble past four defenders before beating goalie Al Hail for a superb opening goal.
He then returned into the danger zone to score with a belligerent strike from the top of the box from the right for the blaze through and hit the crossbar before going down in.
The twin strikes laid Al Arabi low and they had to battle hard against a resistant Al Ahli. They finally hit back in added time of the first half as al-Muraisi made the most of a super al-Somah cross following a fine field move to put the ball into the rival goal.
Four minutes later, al-Somah shocked The Brigadiers with a brilliant left foot ballooning strike which went into the right top corner of the net. It was his 14th goal of the season and made the scores level at 2-2.
The Dream Team returned after the break to give more joy to their fans and soon they got a penalty strike after Al Ahli’s Nikola Vukcevic was found guilty of bringing down a rival player. A VAR check saw the referee signal to the spot and Msakni stepped up to score and make it 3-2. But Al Ahli bounced back again with a move from the left which saw the ball move towards an unmarked Qaderi to score gleefully.
Their joy however was cut short soon by Msakni who was provided with a well-directed header by substitute Rami Suhail Ali to score with his left foot as Al Arabi fans went into a frenzy.

Wakrah beat Shamal to get back to winning path
In the other game on Thursday, Al Wakrah scored a rollicking 5-1 win over Al Shamal. The win took The Blue Wave into the top four, while Shamal are ninth. Al Wakrah led 1-0 at half-time only to return to fire on all cylinders in the second session.
Yousef Abdurisag (17th minute), Jacinto Dala (74th and 80th minutes), Mohamed Benyettou (77th minute) and Murad Naji (85th minute) were the goal scorers for Al Wakrah, while Yacine Bammou (57th minute) got Al Shamal’s only goal.
Al Shamal began brightly and were also soon making some strong tackles and in the 14th minute, their player Abdelaziz Metwali was shown the first yellow card of the match.
The see-saw battle’s complexion changed soon as Abdurisag latched on to a ball while ensuring he was not offside to pump in the opening goal of the match. Al Shamal then tried to pull it back, but could not succeed. In the 26th minute, Al Shamal’s Ali Olwan shaped into a good position to strike, but his kick went over.
The equaliser came post break as Bammou picked a Rabeh Boussafi pass to take it on his chest, control and swing it past a hapless goalkeeper into the net.
Al Wakrah, however, broke past the rival team’s defences late in the second half to steal the show. Their star striker Dala scored two goals to again go up as the leading goal-scorer of the league with a total of 15 to his name. Benyettou and Naji went on to add one each as their fans rejoiced at The Blue Wave’s climb up the rankings.