Gulf Times
Al Sadd’s Akram Afif and Jesualdo Ferreira were named as the QNB Stars League’s best player and coach respectively for the month of February. Akram scored eight goals and gave three assists in three matches during the month, playing crucial roles in the victories against Al Khor (6-2), Al Rayyan (4-0) and Qatar SC (8-1) in that order.
The wily striker, who bagged the award for the first time, hit hat-tricks against Al Khor and Qatar SC, and a brace against Al Rayyan in the Qatar Clasico. Akram, a key member of Qatar’s Asian Cup-winning squad recently, also emerged as the QNB Stars Leagues second-best scorer with 22 goals. He surpassed last two seasons’ top scorer Yousef El Arabi of Al Duhail (21 goals) and is only behind his teammate Baghdad Bounedjah (34 goals). The technical analysis of Akram released by STATS, the official statistics and figures provider for the QNB Stars League, showed he spent 274.0 minutes on the pitch. He made an average of 67.6 passes, of which 56.4 were successful. He scored all his goals from inside the box. The physical aspects revealed that the ace striker covered a total distance of 9,760.5 metres with a high speed distance of 624.0 and very high speed distance of 317.7. Under the Portuguese manager Ferreira, Sadd have scored 18 goals while conceding just three, with 26 shots on target and 12 against it. Ferreira had won the award twice before this season (August and November/December combined).