Al Arabi capped a successful Qatar Volleyball League (QVL) season with a win over Police in the last round at the Al Arabi Stadium yesterday.
Arabi, who had captured their 25th QVL title with a 3-1 (21-25, 25-16, 25-21, 25-22) victory over arch-rivals Al Rayyan in the penultimate round of the league last Monday, came back from behind to beat Police 3-2 (17-25, 25-17, 21-25, 25-22, 15-12) to complete their dominance by winning their 16th consecutive match.
This year was unlike the last three years when Rayyan had emerged victorious. This season, Maaouia Lajnef’s boys showed consistency, losing only one match during their entire campaign. Their only loss came against Ahli in their fourth game.
“It was a superb season for us. We had our plans for the season and we executed it properly,” Arabi coach Lajnef’s told Gulf Times. “It was a tough game today. It was difficult to keep motivation intact after winning the league couple of days back,” he said.
“In the beginning we did not play at our level. But slowly, we regained our flow and we won, making fewer mistakes. I am happy with my boys’ performance throughout the league as we lost only one match and finished the campaign on a high,” he said.
Talking about the upcoming Qatar Cup and Emir Cup, he said: “We are confident of good show as we will be planning to hire a professional player for the Cups.”
Cuban Osman Camejo scored 23 points for the winners, while Ibrahim scored 22. Police’s Williams Diaz scored a match-high 34 points.
Earlier in the evening, GCC champions Rayyan overcame Al Ahli Club in five sets to finish second. Eight-time champions Rayyan maintained pressure on the rivals, keeping the lead mainly through Russian Dmitriy Ilinykh, Mubarak Dahi Waleed and Cassiano De Toni.
Al Ahli, the former three-times runners-up, fought back with Kenyan star Philip Maiyo and Ibrahim Hindawi dominating the net with power-packed spikes. They won the second and fourth sets to force the decider.
Rayyan lifted their game a couple of notches up in the tie-break and from 5-5, they rose to 7-5, which helped them control the proceedings. At 10-9, Mubarak fired a smash on the sidelines. Suddenly, Al Rayyan reeled off three more points to set up the match-point with Al Ahli’s Idris Sharqi not being able to time his jump and a smash by them landing out.
Al Ahli had an uphill task of saving five match-points. They collected two but then Hindawi served out to lose the match. Al Rayyan coach Igor Arbutina said, “We’re delighted to win the match. For us, it was really important to recover from the defeat and some injury problems against Arabi in the last match. Al Ahli played a good game, but in the end, we managed a 3-2 victory and it shows we’re serious till the end.
The Rayyan coach lauded Arabi for asserting their supremacy. “Al Arabi played well and consistently throughout the season and deservingly claimed the league title. Our last match, in which our main player (Ilinykh) was injured, was the turning point for us. If we had won that match, today’s game would have been quite important.  
“But we tried our best this season. Now we’ll focus on the Cups and hopefully, we’ll be reinforcing our team with another professional.”
Qatar Cup will be played from April 22 to 28, while Emir Cup is scheduled from April 30 to 13.


Related Story