Al Sadd coach Juan Manuel Lillo ‘Juanma’ spoke to the media ahead of their 2022-23 season QNB Stars League Week 1 match against Al Markhiya.

“As I have said at a Press conference earlier, the absence of our international stars, who are in the Qatar national team camp, can be seen as an opportunity (for the other players to step up). We can look at it as a problem, but we can also consider it as an opportunity. We do not have a lot of players but we have the opportunity to give time to compete to the players that are there. They are with us now and they have all done well in the training camp during the pre-season phase.

“The training camp in Austria was very good, it gave us the opportunity to get to know the players. Now, we have our first official match against Al Markhiya and it will be useful for us to learn more about the league championship.

“We have watched some Al Markhiya matches from the last season and we have also watched some of their friendly matches before this season,” said Juanma.

Al Sadd player Bahaa Al Laithi said, “The opening match of the league against Al Markhiya will be difficult and enthusiastic at the same time just as opening matches in the league. We must give 100 per cent of our effort to achieve victory and win the first three matches in the competition.

“Our final preparation at the camp in Austria was excellent. We got acquainted with our coach’s plans which will help us at the beginning of our journey. We also played several good friendly matches from which we have benefited a lot. The team is now fully prepared to go into the league championship and provide its best.”