Al-Arabi Club succeeded in reducing the difference between it and leaders Al-Duhail Club to only two points, after its victory yesterday over Al-Gharafa with a goal without a response, in the confrontation that brought the two teams together at Thani Bin Jassim Stadium in Al-Gharafa Club, at the end of the confrontations of poned tenth week of the QNB Stars League. The only goal of the match was scored by Al-Arabi club star Youssef Al-Masakni from a penalty kick in the 38th minute, raising his tally to 9 goals, equally with his colleague Omar Al-Soma and Baghdad Bounedjah, the Al-Sadd player. With this victory, Al-Arabi raised its tally to 34 points, with which it consolidated its presence in second place, while Al-Gharafa’s balance froze at 23 points in sixth place.
The VAR decides the decision. The 31st minute of the first half witnessed the most exciting moments since the start of the match, as Hilal Muhammad, the Al-Arabi player, passed a cross ball into the defensive depth of Al-Gharafa before the ball hit the head of his colleague Ahmed Fathi in a joint ball with Ahmed Al-Janhi, who touched the ball above his arm, which made Referee Abdulrahman Al-Jassim resorts to the video assistant technique himself in order to decide his final decision regarding the existence of a violation on the Al-Gharafa player or not, before announcing that there was no violation and that the ball touched the legal area of ​​the player’s arm, to order the continuation of the game without a penalty kick. And after only 5 minutes had passed since this controversial shot, the penalty area for Al-Gharafa team witnessed a hand touch from the player Aslum Khojayev, who was in the process of intercepting a joint ball with Al-Arabi player Rami Suhail, before the video assistive technology intervened again to resolve the issue, after which the referee, Abdul Rahman Al-Jassem, announced the presence of A correct penalty kick for Al-Arabi, which was successfully executed by Youssef Al-Masakni, announcing the first goals of the match and raising his tally to 9 goals in the scorers’ race. During the second half, video technology continued its strong presence to resolve many issues, whether at the administrative level by expelling Al-Arabi player Abdullah Al-Maarafi in the 67th minute, or also at the technical level by not awarding a penalty kick to the player Farid in the state of Al-Gharafa player after he fell in the forbidden area of ​​the Al-Arabi club in the last minutes of the match. .
Arabawi was expelled in a strong friction between Abdullah Al-Maarafi, the captain of Al-Arabi Club, and Hammam Al-Amin, the Al-Gharafa player, at the 66th minute level. At first, his decision to raise the yellow card in the face of Abdullah Al-Maarafi, but returning to the video assistant technology made him change his decision and delete the yellow card, direct a red card directly, and expel the Al-Arabi captain, considering that the intervention was violent enough to expel him from the stadium. 10 Referee Abdul Rahman Al Jassim, the referee of the match, added 10 full minutes as an alternative time, especially since the match witnessed a lot of events in its second half, whether at the level of invoking video technology or at the level of frequent stops after the physical rush increased on both sides due to the search for the outcome of the match from Al Arabi Or try to tie it from Al Gharafa. During the alternative time, Al-Gharafa imposed complete control over Al-Arabi regions, especially in light of the numerical shortage that the latter suffered from due to the expulsion of Abdullah Al-Maarafi in the first half of the second half. to reply.
"Hamed Ismail: A step in the way of competition for the title " Praise be to God, a well-deserved victory for Al-Arabi club that made us take another step in order to compete for the league title. Today we showed that we are an integrated team. We have great ambition by continuing to play matches with great combat in order to compete for the title, especially since today we were short of two professionals, Omar. Al-Somah and Rafinha, but the players proved that they are up to the responsibility, despite the many shortages in the second half". added" It is true that we want to make our fans happy, especially since the team has not achieved the league title for many seasons, but for us it is better for us to play each match on its own and await the fate of the league at the end, and God willing, we will do everything we can to make the loyal Al-Arabi fans happy." . Amr Siraj: We were lacking in ferocity. Amr Siraj, Al-Gharafa player, congratulated the Al-Arabi players after winning the match, indicating that the opponent took advantage of the spaces behind the attackers and succeeded in scoring the first goals." We lacked ferocity, we did our utmost, but thank God anyway, we have to make greater efforts to find more offensive solutions for Al Gharafa". added" Football is a win and a loss, and we have to turn the page on this match, and God willing, we will return to achieving positive results in order to return to square one.".
