Al Gharafa coach Pedro Martins spoke to the media ahead of their 2024-2025 season Ooredoo Stars League Week 9 match against Al Arabi.

“The most important thing for me is the recovery of the players and regaining their full physical and psychological readiness. And this is our mission and we will continue training with greater focus in preparation for the match. During the match, we will focus on the strategy with which we will enter the match.

“Al Arabi played a very good match in the last round and they have good players. They also changed their coach and brought in Anthony Hudson, who is a distinguished coach and has very good ideas. It will be a difficult match against a strong competitor and we have to win the matches because this is important for us to be close to the top teams.

“I feel very happy that the fans come to support the players in the most difficult moments. It is our duty to provide them with exciting matches and of course cap all of that with victory,” said Martins.

Al Gharafa player Rabeh Boussafy said, “Al Arabi are not an easy team with their offensive strength that requires focus to deal with it. We have to follow the coach’s instructions in order to achieve victory.

“Our preparations are normal in view of the pressure of the matches as we only had three days to recover and train. We thank our fans for their support and we thank everyone who attends. Fans’ support is very important in football and we hope to make them happy in every match.”