Al Wakrah coach Marquez Lopez spoke to the media ahead of their 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League Week 10 match against Al Gharafa.

“We went through our training well over the past few days and we realize that we will face a strong team, which is Al Gharafa, who perform in the league championship very well. It is a balanced and very strong team and has distinguished players in all departments. They also signed another strong player recently.

“Our preparations for this match were normal, like all preparations for the rest of the matches, and the fact that we lost the last match does not mean that we should change the method of preparations because it is one match, and I do not want to change the method of training or matches.

“What is important to me as a coach is that I help the team in creating opportunities. As for translating these opportunities into goals or wasting them, the element of success plays the main role in this matter, and we are well aware that this is the case in football. Any chance leads to a goal, but we make every effort to score as many goals as possible in each match to ensure that some of them are scored,” said Marquez.

Al Wakrah player Mohamed Benyettou said, “Al Gharafa have distinguished players and we realize that we will play against the league leaders, but we will be fully prepared to fight this game in the hope of regaining the winning touch.

“I am looking to score goals in all the matches we play in order to help my team achieve victory, and we do not care much about who scores goals as much as we care about collecting points and achieving victory.

“It is still too early to talk about the scorers’ battle, but I hope that I will have success in competing for the league goal title. So far, we have only played eight matches, so the road is still long, and what is important to me is that the team achieves its goals at the end of the season’s competitions.”