Al Sadd maintained their stranglehold on Al Duhail with a convincing 3-0 win in the Ooredoo Cup at the Suhaim bin Hamad Stadium yesterday. It was the fifth successive victory for Xavi Hernandez’s men against Duhail, and they achieved it impressively after being reduced to 10 men in only the fourth minute. The victory also assured Sadd of a quarter-final spot.
Nam Tae-Hee (third minute), Saoud al-Nasr (11th minute) and Rodrigo Tabata (83rd minute) scored for Sadd, who rose to second position in group A with seven points, one less than Al Wakrah. Duhail have only three points and are at the bottom of the table with only one match remaining. 
Qatar Sports Club (4) and Al Sailiya (5) are in the third and fourth position respectively. 
Yesterday’s game was the first round match of the competition, which was postponed owing to both teams’ campaigns in the 2020 AFC Champions League. 
Duhail had eight under-23 players in their line-up, while Sadd included five. And it was Sadd who started brightly as Nam Tae-Hee opened the scoring. But right after that they were on the backfoot as Abdulrahman Rashed was shown a straight red card by referee Meshari al-Shammari for a foul on Yasen Abdullah, who was rushing to the goal with only goalkeeper Jehad Mohamed in front.
Saoud then doubled the lead as Sadd dominated the exchanges. In hindsight, Sadd reaped the rewards for going 2-0 up inside 11 minutes despite their numerical disadvantage. Their cause was also helped by the lack of experience of Duhail youngsters.
Duhail’s Salman al-Rumaihi missed a chance in the 14th minute as his shot, after being set up by Yasen, was blocked by the goalkeeper. Salman was again denied by Jehad, while Sadd’s Ahmed Sayyar too had an opportunity as the first half drew to a close.
Sadd held fort in the second half, whereas Duhail struggled to make a breakthrough even as the game wore on. And Tabata curled in a free-kick past Al Duhail goalkeeper Ahmed Sofyan to round off the tally.