{"id":20721,"date":"2021-01-12T21:22:06","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T21:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/kenya\/?p=20721"},"modified":"2021-01-12T21:22:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T21:22:06","slug":"michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd","title":{"rendered":"Michael Olunga makes debut for Al Duhail in 3-1 defeat to Xavi\u2019s Al Sadd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>AfricaPress-Kenya:<\/strong> Kenyan international Michael Olunga made his debut for Qatari champions Al Duhail on Tuesday, January 12 in a 3-1 defeat to leaders Al Sadd in the Qatar Stars League.<\/p>\n<p>Algeria international Baghdad Bounedjah scored a hat-trick as Al Sadd, coached by former Barcelona star and Spain international Xavi extended their lead at the top of the log by 11 points.<\/p>\n<p>Almoez Ali scored early for Al Duhail through a penalty, but Olunga\u2019s team could not summon enough creativity to grind out a draw.<\/p>\n<p>Olunga, who started the match was replaced by Khaled Mohammed six minutes after the hour mark. He has been handed the Number 26 jersey.<\/p>\n<p>Olunga joined Qatari-based side Al Duhail from Japanese J-League 1 outfit Kashiwa Reysol. The news was made public following a leaked photo from Qatar\u00a0outlet\u00a0<strong>QSL_Newss<\/strong>,\u00a0showing the 26-year-old posing donning an Al Duhail jersey and scarf.<\/p>\n<p>Kashiwa Reysol are reported to have accepted a bid of about seven million Euros (Approximately Sh933 million) from Duhail for 26-year-old Olunga, who finished J-League top-scorer with 28 goals in 32 appearances, earning a historic golden boot, the first ever to be won by an African.<\/p>\n<p>In September last year,\u00a0Olunga was named the league\u2019s Most Valuable Player (MVP). This after he netted 15 goals in 15 games, propelling the club to fifth position on the table standings.<\/p>\n<p>Al Duhail are seven-time Qatar champions and are currently coached by Frenchman Sabri Lamouchi. They were champions in the seasons 2010\u201311,\u00a02011\u201312,\u00a02013\u201314,\u00a02014\u201315,\u00a02016\u201317,\u00a02017\u201318 and 2019\u201320).<\/p>\n<p>Al Duhail have also won the Qatar Cup three times (2013, 2015 and 2018).<\/p>\n<p>Olunga, who was reported to have extended his contract with Kashiwa Reysol a month ago earned legendary status in Japan following a prolific goal-scoring season.<\/p>\n<p>Two months ago, Olunga finally got his Twitter handle verified following pressure from Kenyans on Twitter (KOT) under the hashtag #VerifyOlunga.<\/p>\n<p>Olunga had previously pleaded with Twitter to verify him, an issue which, to fans, seemed to take too long. He is among the most-followed Kenyan sportsmen on social media, averaging over 540,000 followers on Facebook and over 60,000 on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AfricaPress-Kenya: Kenyan international Michael Olunga made his debut for Qatari champions Al Duhail on Tuesday, January 12 in a 3-1 defeat to leaders Al Sadd in the Qatar Stars League. Algeria international Baghdad Bounedjah scored a hat-trick as Al Sadd, coached by former Barcelona star and Spain international Xavi extended their lead at the top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":20715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[7116,7118,6437],"class_list":["post-20721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","tag-al-duhail","tag-al-sadd","tag-michael-olunga"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Michael Olunga makes debut for Al Duhail in 3-1 defeat to Xavi\u2019s Al Sadd - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kenyan international Michael Olunga made his debut for Qatari champions Al Duhail on Tuesday, January 12 in a 3-1 defeat to leaders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Olunga makes debut for Al Duhail in 3-1 defeat to Xavi\u2019s Al Sadd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kenyan international Michael Olunga made his debut for Qatari champions Al Duhail on Tuesday, January 12 in a 3-1 defeat to leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-01-12T21:22:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2021\/01\/olungas_debut_for5ffde3a20053a.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2181\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Michael Olunga makes debut for Al Duhail in 3-1 defeat to Xavi\u2019s Al Sadd\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-01-12T21:22:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\"},\"wordCount\":349,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2021\/01\/olungas_debut_for5ffde3a20053a.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Al Duhail\",\"Al Sadd\",\"Michael Olunga\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sport\/michael-olunga-makes-debut-for-al-duhail-in-3-1-defeat-to-xavis-al-sadd\",\"name\":\"Michael Olunga makes debut for Al Duhail in 3-1 defeat to Xavi\u2019s Al Sadd - 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