Al Duhail Head Coach, Christophe Galtier, expressed his happiness with the valuable victory his team achieved in Round 7 of the Ooredoo Stars League at the expense of the runners-up, Al Ahli, with a clean goal.

Galtier began his post-match statements by saying: We achieved an important victory against the league runner-up. We faced many difficulties against a team that has been delivering a strong and exceptional performance since the beginning of the season. The one-point difference between us made the match even more intense, so it was imperative for us to win and widen the gap at the top.

Galtier added: I am satisfied with the result despite the technical struggles after making many mistakes. Fortunately, we scored our only goal before the end of the first half. However, there was a lot of haste and many long balls were played, which made our task more difficult.

Galtier continued: The team was very distracted due to the long international break. The team was only complete for one and a half training sessions to prepare for this match. Some players were exhausted after participating with their national teams, unlike Al Ahli who had enough time to prepare for this match, which was clearly evident at the end of the match when we could not impose our dominance on the pitch.

Galtier concluded: We lacked good positioning on the pitch despite the positive result. However, we must regain our collective cohesion and the link between the lines in order to continue our successful journey. But in the end, we managed to achieve victory, which prompts me to congratulate the players on what they presented despite the difficulties we faced in preparing for this important match.