Afif hat-trick secures Al Sadd comeback win over Muaither

Table toppers Al Sadd continued their dominance in the Expo Stars League as they rallied from being two goals down to beat Muaither 4-2 in a thrilling match at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium on Friday night.The eventful clash saw three penalties and also a hat-trick from Al Sadd’s mercurial player Akram Afif, who took his tally as the league’s top scorer to 21 goals. While Ayman El Hassouni (39th-minute penalty) and Tiago Leanco (45th minute) scored for Muaither, Al Sadd hit back with goals from Tarek Salman (48th minute) and Afif (73rd-minute penalty, 77th-minute penalty and 90+8 minute).The win took Al Sadd’s tally to a whopping 40 points, six ahead of second-placed Al Gharafa, who have a game in hand. Muaither are second bottom with 11 points.Al Sadd goalkeeper Yousef al-Baloushi, who rep Saad al-Dosari, expressed his delight at the team’s against Muaither. He said: "We played a tough game against a good team. Despite trailing by two goals, we managed to come back in the second half and achieve a great victory. At the beginning of the match, we had opportunities that we didn’t capitalise on, unlike Muaither, who scored two goals. However, we achieved our goal, which is winning and obtaining the crucial three points. These three points are vital for us in sealing the league title.”In the other match on Friday night, defending champions Al Duhail returned to winning ways by defeating Al Shamal 3-1 at the Abdullah Bin Khalifa Stadium. Michael Olunga scored a brace (73rd minute penalty and 90th minute) after Suhaib Gannan had given Al Duhail the equaliser in the 69th minute.Omid Ebrahimi had opened the scoring for Al Shamal in the 61st minute. Al Duhail are sixth with 22 points, while Al Shamal are ninth with 18 points. Duhail, who had been experiencing a spate of negative results in recent times, were expectedly the more aggressive of the duo as they tried all the tricks in their bag to open their scoring account, but all to no avail.