Sports
Mujica nets hat-trick as Sadd thrash Arabi; Duhail stay top
New signing Abdelkader scores as Qatar SC notch first win of the season after beating Al Shamal
Spanish star Rafael Mujica scored a hat-trick as Al Sadd blanked Al Arabi 5-0 in their third round match of Ooredoo Stars League at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium on Thursday. It was a second successive win in the league for the defending champions who ran roughshod over the rivals. Al Sadd led 3-0 at half time.
Al Duhail also kept up their unbeaten run in the league as they benefited from an own goal from Umm Salal captain Victor Lekhal (45+4th minute) for a 1-0 win at the Khalifa International Stadium. Duhail stay top of the table with 9 points and ahead of Al Sadd (six points).
In the third match of the day, Qatar SC notched their first win of the league beating Al Shamal 1-0 as their new recruit Ahmed Abdelkader struck in the 45+1st minute. The evening however belonged to Al Sadd and Mujica who struck in the 8th minute (penalty), 26th minute & 89th minutes of the match.
Akram Afif (19th minute), and Giovani Henrique (60th minute) scored a goal each. Almost nothing seemed to go Al Arabi’s way right from the start. And while VAR ruled out a penalty against them in the very 5th minute of play, they weren’t as lucky a second time in the 8th minute when Ahmed Fatehi was pulled up for landing his shoe on the calf of Al Sadd’s Hashim Ali while going for a high ball inside the danger area. After a VAR check, the referee pointed to the spot and Spaniard Mujica struck firmly to open the floodgates for his team. Afif showed his mercurial class soon as Al Arabi after a throw in, inside their own half, made a horrendous cross pass and the alert Al Sadd star dashed in to rattle the net (2-0).
One of the best goals of the match followed next as Afif provided a fantastic through ball to Mujica, who grabbed the chance just outside the box and went on to beat a diving goalkeeper to his right (3-0).
One of the few Al Arabi attempts came in the 42nd minute when Ahmed Alaaeldin was within the striking range but he produced a feeble shot which was easily cut off.
In opening half’s added time Al Sadd came close to adding their fourth goal but this time Afif with only the goalkeeper to beat delayed a bit and an Al Arabi defender retrieved the ball from him in good time.
Just before the half time whistle, a Giovani shot went on to hit the cross bar.
Al Sadd, however made it 4-0 at the hour mark as Giovani out-sprinted a rival defender to break in from the right and send the ball diagonally into the far left corner. Al Arabi lifted their defence comparatively and held back further Al Sadd strikes but were mostly had to battle to gain possession as Al Sadd completely held charge. A few of their late strikes went over the goal while a Hassan al-Haydos kick hit the outside of the left post.
Al Sadd had more to celebrate towards the end as Afif provided Giovani with another fine assist to storm in from the left while ensuring that he was not off-side to calmly score his hat-trick goal and the team’s fifth of the match.