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Coach Fossati moans lack of big fan presence to cheer the reigning QSL champions
Ikoli Victor
Doha
Star striker Rodrigo Tabata scored a hat-trick as Al Rayyan began their Qatar Stars League 2016-17 season title defence with a comfortable 3-0 victory over newly-promoted side Al Shahaniya at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium on Saturday.
The major surprise of the man-of-the match performance by last season's joint top scorer was that it took Tabata until stoppage time to register his third goal after the Brazilian-born Qatari international had scored in the opening half and in the 13th minute of the second period.
Rayyan didn't have many chances despite dominating their opponents until Tabata decided to try his luck from about 20 yards with a low strike to beat Khalifa al Dosari for Rayyan's third goal in the added time.
Tabata's celebration was interesting as he ran towards the Lions' bench and laid on the grass doing some leg exercises much to the cheer of his teammates after the final scoreline that underlined Rayyan's overall superiority.
Jorge Fossati was a little disappointed that the stadium was not filled and Al Rayyan supporters were not available to cheer the players."When Rayyan plays we have many followers and our fans are the 12th player whenever we go onto the pitch. It was not easy to play in this kind of atmosphere," the Rayyan manager said at the post-match press conference.
However a Rayyan official clarified that the absence of the fans was due to a suspension by the Qatar Football Association on the club's supporters club.
On the impressive match result, Fossati said:"The scoreline is okay, however we would still analyse the performance of the players. We were patient to score and we got the goals."
Fossati praised his opponents for their tactics in depriving his team fluidity."What I saw of my opponent is a good defensive side that tried to close our movement attacking. The more difficult is to counter-attack when you stop an opponent, they tried in that regard."
Shahaniya manager Fethi Jebel was positive despite his team's defeat. He said the been the first match of the season against a strong team like Rayyan and his players were a bit nervous.
"This is our first game and we are excited about it. We planned to play defensive and stop their possession football but it was difficult.
"Some of the players perhaps were afraid," he added.
Rayyan started with the same team that lost to Lekhwiya in the Sheikh Jassim Cup last week except for striker Sebastian Soria who was injured. The youngster Ahmed Alaaeldin took his position in the attack alongside Garcia and Tabata.
In all of Rayyan's possession play they couldn't create a clear-cut chance to break the defensive formation of Shahaniya. But it took the brilliance of Tabata to conjure an opening goal for the champions. His quick feet was a problem for the defence of the opponents as one of his tricky dribbles saw an opponent hack inside the box with the referee calling for a penalty kick. The resultant kick was nearly dispatched by the Rayyan captain in the 21st minute.
Rayyan pressed for another goal but Mesaad Ali, Alvaro Mejia and Mohamed Bader created a wall that was impregnable.
Gourmi Kaled had Shahaniya's best opportunity in the half when Rayyan defender Goumou failed to clear the ball for the Algerian to shoot but his effort went inches past Soud Abdulla's post.
The visitors only conceded a goal in th first half and sat back to soak the pressure in the second period waiting for a counter attack to break the home side.
That chance never came as Rayyan were rewarded with another goal courtesy Tabata in the 58th minute. Credit to the Spanish striker Garcia, who tirelessly fought his way into the box then threaded a pass for Tabata, who drifted past his marker to shoot to the far left corner of Khalifa.
Shahaniya utilised all their three substitutions and their most liveliest player Fahad Khalfan had some moments of brilliance that never really troubled the Lions back line.
Riadh Mekideche made his debut for Rayyan with a decent performance in the last fifteen minutes of the encounter.
With three minutes added to the clock and both sides ready to end proceedings, Tabata had something up his sleeve as he received a through pass from a teammate.
He moved forward and dribbled past an opponent before firing a low shot from outside the box to beat the Shahaniya custodian.
If Fossati find a way of maintaining this tempo into the season, Rayyan will definitely score many goals going forward but the defence line must be in good shape to balance their play.
