Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Doha: Brazilian Rodrigo Tabata scored four goals as Al Rayyan thrashed 10-man Qatar SC 8-2 in the penultimate match of the Qatar Stars League to move second in the table on Saturday.
The former Besiktas and Santos midfielder started from where he left in Al Rayyan’s 3-1 ACL win over Uzbekistan Nasaf on Wednesday after he found the net as early as in the 12th minute of the match. Tabata had scored the opening goal against Nasaf in the 9th minute.
He notched three more goals in the second half with his third and fourth goals coming after Qatar SC was reduced to ten men in the 61st minute when their goal scorer Sebastian Soria was shown double yellow cards.
With his four-goal feat, Tabata is third highest goal scorer of the league with 12 goals – two behind club and country mate Afonso Alves who did not feature on Saturday’s league match. Brazilian Leonardo (Montera da Silva) and Fabio Montezine scored a piece while Fahad Khalfan came in the 84th minute and scored a brace in the stoppage time to pile more misery on Qatar SC.
After succumbing to two straight defeats in the Group A of ACL, Al Rayyan bounced back in their previous match against Nasaf and will travel to Uzbekistan to face Nasaf in the second of the back-to-back double header on April 18. UAE’s Al Jazira lead Group A with three wins in as many matches while Iran giant Esteghlal is second with four points from three matches.