Expo Stars League/ Al Rayyan Secure 4-0 Win over Al Sadd

Doha: Al Rayyan upstaged champions Al Sadd 4-0 in the last and final Week 22 of 2023-2024 season Expo Stars League on their home turf at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on Sunday. The 15th win of the season for The Lions, the same number as that of Al Sadd, saw them finish the league championship with a tally of 47 points, two less than that of The Wolves who had won the title last week. The goals for Al Rayyan came from Roger Guedes (15th minute), Rodrigo Moreno (50th minute), substitute Gabriel Pereira (89th minute) and Ahmed Al Rawi (90+2 minute). In the eighth minute of the match, Al Rayyan came very close to opening the account when following a corner kick the ball flew off a defender's head for an alert Guedes near the right post to make a header, but the ball hit the bottom of the right post and fell away. Guedes, however, made amends seven minutes later as he grabbed an Ahmed Al Minhali's pass from inside the box back to the top of the box to drive in a left-footer (1-0). Al Rayyan hit again soon in th e second half with a flag kick and Morenos header hit the centre of the crossbar before the ball dived into the goal (2-0). Just on the hour mark, Al Sadds star Akram Afif drove in a long ball from 10 yards outside the box on the left, but it was pushed out by a leaping Al Rayyan goalkeeper Fahad Younis. In the 78th minute, Guedes sent the ball into the net, but VAR ruled offside. With the game picking up more pace towards the end, Al Rayyan gained on a counter as Rodrigo Tabata provided a fine assist to Pereira inside the box and he beat the goalkeeper with ease (3-0). In added time, Tabata again made a long ball and this time to an unmarked Al Rawi who rushed in to score his team's fourth goal of the match. Interestingly, Al Sadd had defeated Al Rayyan by the same margin in the first leg of their Qatar Clasico. Source: Qatar News Agency