AL Duhail Assistant Coach Thierry Oleksiak attributed the team’s defeat this evening versus Al Sadd to the team’s stumble at the beginning of the second half. The coach said in a statement after the end of the match: We played a very good first half. There was a spirit and cooperation on the field between all the players and we succeeded in taking possession of the ball and launching many offensive attempts. However we lost the match at the beginning of the second half, which was very difficult for us after we conceived two goals, but despite that there was insistence from the players to return to the match again, but our loss of the efforts of one of our players affected us strongly, and despite that we were able to show a number of positive aspects despite being down by one man. Al Sadd scored the third goal in the final minutes of the match from a quick counterattack.

The coach said: We had to continue playing with determination when we were ahead in the score. We had to work hard in order to maintain the score and reach the nets again.