A 74th-minute header from Ricardo Gomes saw Al Wakrah beat Al Shahania 1-0 in Week 3 of the 2024-2025 season Ooredoo Stars League at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium of Al Sadd club on Friday.

Al Shahania, who were dogged in defence for most part of the match, were reduced to 10 men in the 39th minute when Hossam Kamal was shown the red card for landing his boot on the left knee of Al Wakrah’s Ayoub Assal while going for a high ball.

The setback, however, did not deter Al Shahania from fighting hard against an attacking Al Wakrah.

It was the first win of the season for The Blue Wave, who moved to fourth place with five points, while Al Shahania, with two points, are 11th.

Al Wakrah made a racy start to the game and in the very fifth minute of the match Abdelkarim Hassan unleashed a booming shot from left outside the box, but his left-footer hit the crossbar and almost shook the goal post.

Two minutes later, Al Wakrah’s Aissa Laidouni lobbed in a ball for Gomes to go on and score. But VAR found the player to be offside and the big celebrations of the team were muted.

With Al Shahania putting up a fighting defence, Al Wakrah’s repeated attempts to make a breakthrough yielded no results in what was a goalless first half.

Post break, Al Wakrah’s Jacinto Dala when in the striking range hit the ball over in the 56th minute.

Al Wakrah’s hard efforts finally succeeded when they won a corner. The measured kick from the right was anticipated by Gomes superbly as he overlapped a defender to make the header.

With Al Wakrah going up the lead, Al Shahania now looked to attack and they did admirably so coming close to scoring on a few occasions.

Towards the end, substitute Lotfi Majder provided a good pass to another sub Mohammed Ismail, but the latter could not control the ball and hit it out.

Almost at the end of stoppage time, Majder again made an assist, but this time Francesco Antonucci’s kick was saved by the outstretched right hand of Al Wakrah goalkeeper Mohamed Al Bakri.