Xavi Hernández wins the Emir's Cup by penalties
Xavi Hernández's team, Al-Sadd, which has Santi Cazorla, managed to win the Emir Cup for the second year in a row this Friday on penalties at the expense of Al-Rayyan after drawing 1-1. In the penalty shootout, Xavi's team defeated those led by Laurent Blanc 4-5.
It must be remembered that Al-Rayyan is the current team of Colombian James Rodríguez, who could not help his new team to win this championship.
Likewise, this final allowed the inauguration of the new and spectacular Al Thumama stadium, which is the fifth stadium already completed for what will be the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
A new title for the former Barcelona
With this new conquest, Xavi Hernández reaches his seventh title as coach of Al-Sadd, a team with which he debuted as a coach, winning the Qatar Super Cup in 2019 and in 2020 he managed to win three cup titles, Qatari Stars Cup, Cup of the Emir and Qatar Cup.
In the month of March, he got his second Qatari league, which he achieved after 2019, which was as a player. During the final it could be seen that Xavi Hernández's team was the owner of the ball, but despite this, it was Al-Rayyan who took the lead and did so with a very controversial penalty.
The person in charge of collecting the penalty foul was Y acine Brahimi, who advanced his team at minute 45 of the first half.
In this way those led by Blanc would go to rest with an advantage on the scoreboard. However, it should be noted that the referee's decision on that play was left in doubt.
Al-Sadd in search of glory
The second half of the game began and Al-Sadd was determined to turn the game around to the rival team, where again they were the owners of the ball.
The tie would arrive at minute 58 through a maximum penalty, which was transformed by Santi Cazorla, so that both goals of the commitment were from 12 steps.
After that moment, those led by Xavi Hernández had several scoring chances, but one of them was very clear.
However, those led by Blanc, were also very close to getting the second goal with a shot from Yohan Boli or a foul charged by James Rodríguez that went over the crossbar.
In another of the controversial plays of the match, the referee with the help of the VAR determined that there was no penalty on Akram Afif, as was requested by Al-Sadd.
In this way, the 90 minutes would end with the marking equal to one goal, so that everything would be defined in the penalty shoot-out.
The penalty shoot-out was quite even, the Al-Rayyan player who missed the penalty was Shoja Khalilzadeh, while Jung Woo-young would be the one who transformed the goal into the decisive penalty, which gave Xavi's team the Emir Cup again. Hernandez.
Which meant the seventh title for the former Barcelona, who so far is having a pretty successful coaching career.
In addition. This same week, Xavi Hernández confirmed that his objective is to be able to train Barcelona, who is seen as one of the possible substitutes for Koeman.