The Ooredoo Stars League 2025 will resume its journey the day after tomorrow, Saturday, with the matches of the fifth round, after stopping last week due to the matches of our representatives in the AFC Champions League Elite and AFC Champions League 2.
The return of the Stars League will be strong, exciting and fiery, as it will witness extremely important football summits, the most prominent of which is the anticipated and unusual summit that brings together Al Duhail and Al Sadd, the strongest competitors and closest candidates to seize the shield.
The round will also witness a strong clash between Al Rayyan and Al Wakrah, in addition to the (Al Hilal) derby between Al Ahli and Al Arabi, which is an unusual derby, and the strong confrontation between Qatar and Al Gharafa, Umm Salal and Al Shahaniya, and finally the meeting of the neighbors Al Khor and Al Shamal.
All eyes will be on the anticipated summit between Al Duhail, who are in the lead with a full score (12 points), and Al Sadd, who are in third place (6 points), as it may reveal more and more features of the competition, although the journey is still long.
Perhaps the successive victories of Al Duhail, and the stumbling that haunts Al Sadd, will be the reason for the summit to ignite, as Al Duhail hopes to continue the victories and reach the fifth victory and continue to sing alone in the lead, and most importantly of all, to increase the problems of its closest and strongest competitors so that it can get rid of it early, while Al Sadd refuses the second loss in a row and the third loss in 5 rounds, and at the same time wants to disable its strong competitor so that it does not move further and further away in the lead and then it becomes difficult for it to pursue and chase it, and thus it may be the beginning of losing a lot of luck in the journey to defend its title that it regained last season and wants to keep it.
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Al Rayyan, who are fifth (6 points), will have a heavyweight match against Al Wakrah, who are seventh (5 points), in which there is no alternative but to win, especially for Al Wakrah, who suffered their first loss in the last round against Al Duhail, while Al Rayyan achieved victory over Al Shahaniya.
The absence of any alternative to victory makes the confrontation on a hot plate, especially since Al Rayyan is coming from a heavy Asian loss on its home ground and in front of its fans against Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia, and it wants to reconcile with the fans and confirm the correction of the path, and also Al Wakrah wants to correct the path after the first local loss, which it refuses to disrupt its dreams and great ambition to compete for the title.
Al Hilal derby
In the fiery Al Hilal derby, the runner-up Al Ahli (10 points) will clash with the tenth Al Arabi (3 points). The derby will be fiery in every sense of the word after the strong performances that the Dean has been presenting so far, which have made him achieve 3 victories and a draw that have propelled him to second place, which he seeks to hold on to and not give up. Perhaps he will achieve an old dream that his fans have been waiting for since time immemorial, which is to win the shield for the first time in his history. Meanwhile, Al Arabi is in the most difficult position with his national coach, Younis Ali, due to the poor performance and declining results, the last of which was the draw with Al Khor with 10 players, which made his fans sad and sorry for losing the first victory.
Healing wounds
In the match between the two injured teams, Qatar, in eleventh place (3 points) and Al-Gharafa, in sixth place (5 points), the three points will be the only goal for each of them, as Qatar hopes to return to victories and compensate for the loss of the last round against Al-Ahli, and Al-Gharafa also wants to compensate for the draw that was more like a loss with Al-Shamal, and also wants to correct the image and reconcile and please its angry fans due to its heavy loss against Esteghlal of Iran in the AFC Champions League.
Both teams need to perform better than they have done so far, as Al Gharafa is struggling to compete strongly for the shield that has been absent since 2011, and Qatar is working to restore its bright image that it presented at the end of last season by reaching the runner-up position in the most expensive cup.
Neighbours meeting
The two neighbors, Al Khor, ninth (3 points) and Al Shamal, eighth (4 points), will face each other in a match that will be wide open, as Al Khor, which has returned from the second division, is still looking for its first victory in order to stay away from the danger and battle of survival and relegation, which is the same goal as Al Shamal, which is aspiring to a second victory.
Both teams are in good spirits, especially Al Khor, with 10 players, snatched a valuable draw from Al Arabi in the dying moments, and Al Shamal also snatched an exciting draw with Al Gharafa, although it was closer to winning.
Difficult meeting
In a difficult match, Umm Salal, fourth (6 points), seeks to continue its victories and achieve its third victory at the expense of the injured Al-Shahaniya, twelfth and last (2 points), who has not tasted victory yet.
Umm Salal enters the match with high morale after their big win over Al Sadd in the last round 3-1, unlike Al Shahaniya who lost 4-0 to Al Rayyan.