Qatar to take on Portugal in European qualifiers

DEBRECEN, Hungary: Qatar's national football team will take on Portugal in the European World Cup qualifiers on Saturday. On Wednesday, Qatar – the 2019 Asian champions – lost to Serbia in their Group A clash. Earlier the year in Group A, Qatar defeated Luxembourg (1-0) and Azerbaijan (2-1) before playing a 1-1 draw against the Republic of Ireland. “We have to do better,” Qatar coach Felix Sanchez on Friday at a press conference. “We have to learn from the mistakes we committed in the first match,” the Spaniard added. When asked to review the performance from last Wednesday, Sanchez said: “Look, we are playing some of the top teams in Europe. These things happen. Our main target is to help players recover from a tough, tiring match. It was not a performance we expected. Hope we learn and move on.”

Qatar lose to Serbia in European qualifiers

Debrecen-Serbia struck twice in the first 20 minutes and even as Qatar tried hard to reduce the deficit, knocked in two more goals in the second session to emerge 4-0 winners in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 European qualifiers on Wednesday. It was not the start Qatar were expecting at the Nagyerdei Stadion in Debrecen in Hungary. They will now look to make amends in their next big encounter, against Portugal, on Saturday. A defensive blunder in the third minute and an aggressive Serbian manoeuvre in the 18th saw the Qatari fort fall early. Team Qatar were then left with the difficult task of playing catch up. Boualem Khouki was guilty of directing the ball into his own net even as he tried to keep out a cross from Nemanja Gudelj soon after kick-off. Goalkeeper Saad Al Sheeb was way out of position to prevent the ball from going in. In the 18th, Serbia’s Dusan Valhovic foiled a Qatar raid inside their half and set off on a quick run from the centre. He crossed to team-mate Luka Jovic, running in from the right. The Real Madrid striker, now on loan to Eintracht Frankfurt, trapped and fired a left-footer into the nylons. Qatar’s defence did well to thwart the Serbs for the rest of the session. But in the 59th, Khouki was dispossessed by midfielder Filip Djuricic just outside the box. Djuricic found Valhovic inside the penalty area and the latter slammed the ball past Al Sheeb. Qatar’s Spanish coach Felix Sanchez made some quick changes and brought in Akram Afif, Homam Ahmed and Assim Madibo. The fresh legs injected energy into Qatar’s attacks, but there was no real danger to the Serbian citadel. In the 85th, when Serbia knocked in one more, defender Nikola Milenkovic heading home off a corner, there was little Qatar could do.

Sheikh Joaan honors Qatar's national table tennis and swimming teams

DOHA-H.E. President of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani honored Qatar's national swimming and table tennis teams in recognition of their outstanding results at the 2021 Arab Table Tennis Championships concluded recently in Jordan and the 28th GCC Aquatics Championships held in Doha last month. H.E. QOC Second Vice President Dr. Thani bin Abdulrahman Al-Kuwari, H.E. QOC Secretary General Jassim bin Rashid Al Buenain, President of the Qatar Table Tennis Association Khaleel Al Mohannadi, President of the Qatar Swimming Association Khaleel Al Jabir, Board Members of the two federations and Directors of QOC Departments attended the honoring ceremony. H.E. Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani congratulated the two teams on their achievements lauding efforts made by the presidents, members of the administrative and technical bodies and all the players of the two federations. He also reaffirmed that QOC is keen to support the national sports federations to enable them to achieve more in the forthcoming events. Qatar's table tennis team claimed the second place at the 2021 Arab Championship held in Jordan with 19 medals including 4 gold medals in both singles and doubles events, while Qatar's swimming team won the title of youth and age group events at the 28th GCC Aquatics Championships in Doha. Team Qatar swimmers claimed 52 medals including 30 gold medals, 15 silver medals and 7 bronze medals. Qatar also took the second place in the open age group event with 10 medals including 3 gold medals, 6 silver medals and 1 bronze medal.

Qatar eye points against Serbia as 2022 Qualifiers Resume

DEBRECEN, HUNGARY - Asian champions Qatar will be eyeing points against Serbia when the two sides clash in a European qualifier for the 2022 FIFA World Cup that is just 15 months away. Coached by Felix Sanchez for the last four years, Qatar will play their first match since their impressive run in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, in which they were eliminated in the semifinal against the US earlier this month. Serbia, coached by Dragan Stojkovic, are ranked 29 on the FIFA computer. Serbia have drawn with Portugal (2-2) and Jamaica (1-1) in their last four internationals. Serbia beat Azerbaijan (2-1) in the other two matches before losing to former Asian champions Japan (0-1). Qatar, on the other hand, have looked in menacing form this year. At their Gold Cup debut, Qatar drew with Panama (3-3) before crushing Honduras (2-0) and edging El Salvador 3-2. Following an entertaining clash, Qatar lost to the US (1-0) in the semifinals. Playing their matches in Europe, Qatar will be playing Serbia on Wednesday in the first of two games at the Nagyerdei Stadion in the Hungarian city of Debrecen. Sanchez’s boys will next play Portugal on September 4 at the same venue. Hosts of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar, appear in the qualifiers to gain experience ahead of the football blockbuster next year. Earlier in the year in Group A, Qatar beat Luxembourg (1-0) and Azerbaijan (2-1) before playing a 1-1 draw against the Republic of Ireland. Since their return from the US, the Qatari squad assembled in Doha for a short period before heading to Austria, where the Asian champions have been conducting a full scale of training sessions under the watchful gaze of coach Sanchez. The 20,000-capacity venue saw the maroons amass a tally of seven points out of a possible nine in the opening three rounds of Group A of the European section of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification against Luxembourg, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Ireland. On Monday, the Qatar Football Association announced influential striker Mohammed Muntari will miss out on the qualifiers because of an injury. Qatar will take on Luxembourg on September 7 in what would be the last of three internationals within a week’s time. This week, the Qatar squad is expected to be in the limelight of fans after QFA launched a nationwide marketing campaign in Hungary ahead of the Serbia clash. The marketing campaign has been launched on the ground and social media platforms of QFA. Qatari flags around the stadium and posters of the match at the training venues have been set up. Match posters have also appeared at the Debrecen train station, and advertisements promoting the matches against Serbia and Portugal can also be seen at Budapest Airport. Qatar squad: Saad Al-Sheeb, Meshaal Barsham, Mahmoud Abu Nada, Youssif Hassan, Salah Zakaria, Pedro Miguil, Abdul Karim Hassan, Tariq Salman, Ahmed Suhail, Musaab Khidir, Bassam Al-Rawi, Homam Al-Amin, Khouki Boualem, Mohamed Waad, Assim Madabo. Karim Boudiaf, Ismail Mohamed, Abdullah Al-Ahraq, Abdullah Marafiya, Abdulaziz Hatim, Jassem Jaber, Akram Afif, Hassan Al-Haydos, Khaled Mohamed, Sultan Al-Braik, Ali Asad, Ahmed Moein, Yusuf Abdurisag, Al-Moez Ali and Ahmed Alaa.

Qatar Olympic Academy Selected Best Educational Institution In Qatar 2021

DOHA, (QNA) - The Excelligent, an international magazine specialized in the field of education, has chosen the Qatar Olympic Academy as the best educational center in the State of Qatar for the year 2021. This selection is based on the magazine's monitoring of the activity and educational movement of academies and educational centers in the State of Qatar, where the Qatar Olympic Academy, with its diverse activities, programs and courses that include many sports, administrative and technical fields, has been able to reach all segments of Qatari, Gulf and Arab society, in addition to many European and American countries. By introducing the simultaneous translation system into its programs that it provided with the distance learning system, as the Academy had moved to the distance education system through its use of Microsoft Teams and Zoom with the beginning of the Corona pandemic (Cvid-19) in March of last year. The Qatar Olympic Academy has developed its programs and courses to suit distance education since the beginning of the Corona pandemic (Covid 19), as the Academy adopted a calendar this year that includes many programs, courses and workshops in various sports and Olympic fields, which exceeded twenty different programs and courses, whether at the level of workshops Olympic education or various courses as well as postgraduate studies in cooperation with a number of international and regional bodies, in addition to cooperation with many state institutions and ministries to provide special courses for their employees within the framework of joint cooperation to reach common goals and reach the public benefit. For his part, Executive Director of the Qatar Olympic Academy, Saif Mohammed Al-Nuaimi, stressed that the selection of The Excelligent International magazine for the Qatar Olympic Academy as the best educational center in the State of Qatar for the year 2021 comes as a result of the concerted efforts of the work teams in the academy who always strive for the best, as well as partners from International, continental and local bodies, as well as the lecturers who contributed greatly to gaining the confidence of the students. He added: "The Qatar Olympic Academy always seeks to reach all segments of the local community, especially the Arab and international community in general, through diversity in the programs, courses and workshops that serve the sports community administratively and technically, in order to achieve one of the most important goals of the academy, which is to spread the sports and Olympic culture among societies."

HH the Amir Meets Team Qatar Champions at Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Doha, (QNA) - HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met at the Amiri Diwan on Thursday morning with Team Qatar Olympic mission (Al-Adaam), which was crowned two gold medals in high jump and weightlifting and a bronze medal in beach volleyball at Tokyo 2020 Olympics. At the beginning of the meeting, HH the Amir congratulated Qatar Olympic team champions and the administrative and technical bodies in the results achieved by Qatar's heroes in the Olympics, and stressed on the need to complete the march towards more sports achievements and championships in the future. HH the Amir also granted Olympic champion Mutaz Barshim Al Wajbah Decoration, in recognition of his historic achievement by winning three consecutive medals in his Olympic participation and his distinguished representation of Qatari sport. For their part, team Qatar champions (Al-Adaam) expressed their thanks to HH the Amir for the special care and full support that HH accords to Qatari athletes. They also considered honoring of the Olympic champion Mutaz Barshim as an honor for all the athletes in Qatar and affirmed their keenness to achieve more future achievements and raise the flag of the country in international sports forums. (QNA)