Xavi Hernandez heaped praise on his players after Al Sadd entered the final of the Amir Cup on Sunday with a convincing 3-0 win over Al Arabi.
Al Sadd, who are coming off after a disappointing Asian Champions League campaign where they failed to make it to the last 16, posed too much quality for Al Arabi. Nam Tae-hee, Baghdad Bounedjah and Santi Cazorla were on the scoresheet as Al Sadd stayed on course for their 18th Amir Cup title.
“We are happy with this victory. I am happy with our performance and ensuring qualification for the final. We know that the task is not easy but we will continue to work hard in order to win the title,” Xavi said. "We played wonderful football for the first half hour of the match. I consider this match as one of the best we have played,” he added.
On Al Sadd's ambition to win the title, Xavi said: “Certainly our goal is to win the title and we will wait for the winning team in the second semi-final between Al Duhail and Al Rayyan. We know that they are strong but we will be focused to defend the tournament. We will work hard to win Amir Cup.”
Meanwhile, Al Arabi coach Heimir Hallgrimsson said his team lost the match in the first half after conceding an early goal to Al Sadd.
“We gave away the goal early at the start of the match and this gave Al Sadd an advantage. It was difficult from thereon for us to comeback into the game as Al Sadd are strong team,” he said.
And about playing in a defensive way at the beginning, Hallgrimsson said: “It was a correct decision to play in this way because many players were not ready to play 90 minutes, such as Munisa, Sebastian and Al-Ansari. So best decision was to defend in the beginning to stop Al Sadd and the look to score in the counterattack.”
