Al Sadd drop points against Al Gharafa

Al Sadd slipped up in their bid to finish second in the Qatar Stars League when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Al Gharafa yesterday.
With Al Rayyan having already wrapped up the title, Al Sadd, Lekhwiya and El Jaish are engaged in an engrossing battle for second, with Umm Salal also mathematically in the mix.
But yesterday, fourth-placed Al Sadd missed a golden opportunity to reduce the gap on El Jaish and Lekhwiya when they failed to defend Meshaal Qassim’s 17th minute goal and had to split points with Al Gharafa who equalised four minutes later through Vladimir Weiss.
As a result Al Sadd now have 36 points from 21 matches, while El Jaish are second on 40 and Lekhwiya third on 38.
Yesterday’s only match concluded round 21 of the Qatar Stars League which will resume late this week, with the El Jaish-Al Arabi match promising to keep fans interested.
Both sides head into the match at Lekhwiya stadium after suffering frustrating draws against sides in the bottom half in the QSL table.
In round 21, Arabi opened the scoring early against Al Kharaitiyat through Paulinho, however Gianfranco Zola’s side conceded in the second half to give relegation threated Kharaitiyat a valuable share of the points.
On the other hand, El Jaish conceded a 60th minute penalty to bottom side Meisameer. Despite letting the Flames back into the tie, El Jaish where unable to find a winner with the tie ending in a 1-1 draw.  
Therefore, both sides will be eager to get back to winning ways in this clash. Al Arabi have bad memories of this match from the first half of the season, comprehensively losing 4-0 to Jaish back in November. Gianfranco Zola’s side will be looking for revenge going into the match. Arabi will be looking to Qatari midfielder Boualem Khoukhi to shut out El Jaish in this tie.
Jaish, meanwhile, could be set for their highest league finish in the QSL. Sabri Lamouchi will be looking to the attacking talent of Romarinho, Abderrazak Hamdallah and Sardor Rashidov in this game. The dynamic trio has collectively contributed to 82% of Jaish goals so far in the league. Meanwhile, QSL side Al Khor are set to be without the services of their Brazilian striker Julio Cesar due to a hamstring pull  he suffered during his sides 3-1 victory over Qatar SC on Sunday evening.
Cesar scored his team’s first goal against QSC before he was substituted due to injury. Al Khor’s timely win pushed them to 9th in the QSL standings.
Head coach Fernandez expressed his sadness for the injury of the Brazilian player who is a key player for the side.
Cesar could be out for up to two weeks, meaning that the Brazilian striker could sit out QSL games against Lekhwiya and Mesaimeer.