By Sports Reporter
Doha
El Jaish will be looking for their first win of their Qatar Stars League season when they host Al Sailiya at the Abdullah Bin Khalifeh today. Jaish had drawn their opening game against Al Ahli last week.
Head coach Sabri Lamouchi called it a very crucial game. “This second game is very important for us. We want to get back in the competition with a win. The aim is to play better against Sailiya and get a positive result. We want the players to run more, to work for the team more. I want to see my players put in the same effort during the game as they do during training,” he said yesterday.
Lamouchi was of the opinion that his players need to show more energy during the matches. “We are aiming to look at this game as the start of the competition. We had three months off. And then more than 50 days of preparation which is too long. The first game didn’t yield a positive result for us but it wasn’t a bad one either. A draw was a logical result for that match. For the next game we need to do more. Each player needs to do more,” he noted.
Sailiya coach Sami Trabelsi is coming off a bad start after they were thrashed 0-4 by Al Rayyan in their first game. “We will try to make some tactical corrections and resolve the problems that we had against Rayyan. Jaish have very good players - local and professional. In the first game you saw that they played Abdulkadir Ilyas who plays for the national team wasn’t even in the starting eleven. So that shows that they have a very talented squad,” said Trabelsi.
“We are trying to forget all the things from our last game. I am not a coach who cries every time the referees make a mistake. But last season there were a lot of mistakes by referees against Sailiya but I didn’t speak about it. But this season I hope that it changes for us,” he added.
“We are sad to lose our first game. But we did make a lot of mistakes and you cannot play football if you concede those kinds of goals. Hopefully this loss will be a motivation for us to do well in the next game and help us play with more concentration.”
Gharafa face Mesaimeer
In another match today, Al Gharafa host Mesaimeer. Gharafa Coach Pericles Chamusca said: “I have seen Mesaimeer in the last game. We know that Gharafa has good players and our quality is better than Mesaimeer. But a football match is 90 minutes and played on the field, not on paper. Mesaimeer have a few players who had played with me when I was coach of Jaish. The players know how to keep the ball and create chances. I will try to reduce spaces for them and not give them an opportunity to create these chances. I have worked with the team to prepare them for the dangers that Mesaimeer can pose.”
Mesaimeer coach Rodion Gacanin was hoping his team can bounce back from their loss to Al Sadd. “We lost the first match against Sadd who are a very strong team. Gharafa is also a strong team, stronger than they were last year. I hope that we play better football than we did in our last match,” he said.
El Jaish coach Sabri Lamouchi
