Al Rayyan beat Al Shamal 2-1 in Week 14 of the 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on Sunday.

This was Al Rayyan’s second win over Al Shamal in this season’s league championship. While Gabriel Pereira (66th minute) and Roger Guedes (71st minute) got the goals for The Lions, the consolation goal for Al Shamal came in added time (90+7 minute) from Mohsen Al Yazidi.

The win consolidated Al Rayyan’s fourth place in the standings with 25 points from 13 games, while Al Shamal remained in 10th place with 11 points after their 13 matches.

A keen battle in the opening half turned into an exciting contest in the second session, with both teams showing more intent aiming to score.

Soon after resumption of play in the second half, Al Shamal’s Mahdi Salem made a telling left-foot kick from inside the box, but the ball swirled before going on to hit the underside of the crossbar before falling out.

Al Shamal kept up the charge and in the 62nd minute, amidst a goal-mouth melee, Younes Mohamed El Hannach kicked the ball towards the net with the goalkeeper being out, but an alert Shogo Taniguchi of Al Rayyan managed to keep the ball away.

Al Shamal soon returned with a move once again, but this time a header went to the right of the goal.

The Lions, facing quite some pressure then turned the tables on their rivals with a quick double strike as first Thiago Mendes ran down the left and from outside the box sent in a fine cross for Pereira to beat the goalkeeper and put his side into the lead.

Within minutes, Al Rayyan raided the rival den again for a consecutive strike as Guedes and substitute Achraf Becharki combined superbly. Guedes first ran down the middle to pass the ball to Bencharki on the left before taking the cross just near the right post as he slided to kick it in.

The double blow left Al Shamal searching for answers. Their hard efforts bore fruit in added time as the ball from a header following a corner kick saw Al Yazidi from just centre of outside the box make a powerful strike which was safely let go through his legs by Al Shamal’s Matias Nani.

In the dying moments, Al Rayyan made more attempts and a Bencharki kick was well deflected by diving Al Shamal goalkeeper Abdalla Elrady.

In the first leg of the league, Al Rayyan had beaten Al Shamal 4-3 at the Al Bayt Stadium in Week 3.