Rodolfo Arruabarrena

Rodolfo Martín Arruabarrena (born 20 July 1975), known as El Vasco (The Basque), is an Argentine professional football manager and former player, who is the manager of the Boca Juniors. A left-back, he spent most of his career with Boca Juniors, where he began his professional career, and Spanish club Villarreal.

Club career

Argentina "El Vasco" Arruabarrena (The Basque) debuted professionally in 1993 with Boca Juniors, where he played until 2000, except for the Apertura 1996, when he was lent to Rosario Central for six months. After returning to Boca, he gained a place in the regular squad.

While with Boca, Rodolfo Arruabarrena won the Apertura in 1998 and the Clausura in 1999 Argentine first division tournaments, as well as the Copa Libertadores 2000. He played a total of 178 games for Boca in all competitions, scoring 7 goals.

Villarreal From Boca he moved to Spanish Villarreal in mid 2000. Because of his reliability while playing as the team's left-back, he has been the team's captain in several occasions. He holds Villarreal's record of appearances in La Liga, with 178 first division matches with El Submarino Amarillo (as of 9 December 2005).

Arruabarrena's goals in the 2005–06 UEFA Champions League helped to eliminate Scottish club Rangers and Italians Inter Milan to reach the semi-finals in the club's first ever season in the competition.

With Villarreal, he won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2003 and 2004, and played 200 league and international matches for the Spanish team (as of 10 September 2006).

AEK Athens On 3 May 2007, El Vasco signed a three-year contract with Greek Super League runners-up AEK Athens for €800,000 per year for two years, extendable for a third. According to Arruabarrena, an important role for his decision to continue his career in Greece was played by Lorenzo Serra Ferrer (AEK manager) and Demis Nikolaidis (former star player and later president of his new club who played for Atlético Madrid in 2003–04).

In Rivaldo's debut with AEK, Arruabarrena set up the Brazilian legend to score on a header. Arruabarrena also set up Ismael Blanco to score against Getafe in a UEFA Cup match. Arruabarrena managed to have 25 appearances for AEK in one season but, halfway through the season, he suffered a serious injury.

On 29 July 2008, AEK Athens manager Georgios Donis announced to the press that Arruabarrena was no longer in the team's plans.

International career El Vasco played five matches with the Argentina national team, as well as several with the youth team. Arruabarrena made his first cap against Chile in 1994. He also played some matches in 1995 and one against England on 23 February 2000. Arruabarrena was not called up again for national team duty until September 2006, when Alfio Basile called him for a friendly match against Spain, and then again in February 2007 for another friendly against France. Arruabarrena was also called up for another friendly match against Chile on 18 April 2007 but he was left on the substitutes' bench.

Career statistics Club

International

Managerial statistics

Honours

Player Boca Juniors Argentine Primera División: 1998 Apertura, 1999 Clausura Copa Libertadores: 2000

Villarreal UEFA Intertoto Cup: 2003, 2004

Universidad Católica Chilean Primera División: 2010

Argentina U23 Pan American Games: 1995

Manager Boca Juniors Argentine Primera División: 2015 Copa Argentina: 2014–15

Al-Rayyan Sheikh Jassim Cup: 2018

Shabab Al Ahli UAE President's Cup: 2018–19 UAE League Cup: 2018–19 UAE Pro League runner-up: 2018–19