Rodolfo Martín Arruabarrena (born 20 July 1975) is an Argentinean professional football manager and former footballer, who is the current head coach of the United Arab Emirates national football team.
![]() Rodolfo Arruabarrena in 1995 | ||||||||||||||||
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Rodolfo Martín Arruabarrena | |||||||||||||||
Date of birth | (1975-07-20) 20 July 1975 (age 47) | |||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Marcos Paz, Buenos Aires, Argentina | |||||||||||||||
Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) | |||||||||||||||
Position(s) | Left back | |||||||||||||||
Club information | ||||||||||||||||
Current team | United Arab Emirates (manager) | |||||||||||||||
Youth career | ||||||||||||||||
1985–1992 | Boca Juniors | |||||||||||||||
Senior career* | ||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||||
1993–2000 | Boca Juniors | 178 | (11) | |||||||||||||
1996 | → Rosario Central (loan) | 15 | (0) | |||||||||||||
2000–2007 | Villarreal | 219 | (11) | |||||||||||||
2007–2008 | AEK Athens | 16 | (0) | |||||||||||||
2008–2010 | Tigre | 67 | (2) | |||||||||||||
2010 | Universidad Católica | 13 | (0) | |||||||||||||
National team‡ | ||||||||||||||||
1995–2006 | Argentina | 5 | (0) | |||||||||||||
Teams managed | ||||||||||||||||
2011–2012 | Tigre | |||||||||||||||
2013–2014 | Nacional | |||||||||||||||
2014–2016 | Boca Juniors | |||||||||||||||
2016–2018 | Al Wasl | |||||||||||||||
2018 | Al-Rayyan | |||||||||||||||
2018–2020 | Shabab Al Ahli | |||||||||||||||
2020–2021 | Pyramids | |||||||||||||||
2022– | United Arab Emirates | |||||||||||||||
Honours
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*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 17 July 2018 ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 02:35, 10 October 2018 (UTC) |
As a footballer, he played as a left back and spent most of his career with Boca Juniors, where he began his professional career, and Spanish club Villarreal.
"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 6 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.
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 2005–2006 Champions League helped to eliminate Scottish giants Rangers F.C. and Italians Internazionale to reach the semi-finals in the club's first ever season in the competition.
With Villarreal CF 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).
On 3 May 2007, El Vasco signed a three-year contract with Greek Super League runners-up AEK for 800,000 euros 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 2003–2004).[1]
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 Giorgos Donis announced to the press that Arruabarrena was no longer in the team's plans.
El Vasco played five matches with the Argentina national football 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.
Argentina national team | ||
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Year | Apps | Goals |
1994 | 2 | 0 |
1995 | 1 | 0 |
1996 | 0 | 0 |
1997 | 0 | 0 |
1998 | 0 | 0 |
1999 | 0 | 0 |
2000 | 1 | 0 |
2001 | 0 | 0 |
2002 | 0 | 0 |
2003 | 0 | 0 |
2004 | 0 | 0 |
2005 | 0 | 0 |
2006 | 1 | 0 |
Total | 5 | 0 |
Team | Nat | From | To | Record | |||||||
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G | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Win % | ||||
Tigre | ![]() |
5 January 2011 | 21 October 2012 | 76 | 28 | 26 | 22 | 99 | 86 | +13 | 036.84 |
Nacional | ![]() |
26 March 2013 | 31 December 2013 | 27 | 16 | 2 | 9 | 45 | 34 | +11 | 059.26 |
Boca Juniors | ![]() |
29 August 2014 | 29 February 2016 | 75 | 47 | 13 | 15 | 122 | 57 | +65 | 062.67 |
Al Wasl | ![]() |
1 July 2016 | 30 June 2018 | 63 | 37 | 14 | 12 | 130 | 79 | +51 | 058.73 |
Al-Rayyan | ![]() |
5 July 2018 | 8 October 2018 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 9 | −1 | 044.44 |
Shabab Al Ahli | ![]() |
11 October 2018 | 8 March 2020 | 56 | 39 | 8 | 9 | 118 | 48 | +70 | 069.64 |
Pyramids FC | ![]() |
11 November 2020 | 29 June 2021 | 36 | 17 | 13 | 6 | 51 | 35 | +16 | 047.22 |
United Arab Emirates | ![]() |
13 February 2022 | Present | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 9 | −6 | 016.67 |
Total | 348 | 189 | 80 | 79 | 576 | 355 | +221 | 054.31 |
Current managers of AFC national teams | |
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Argentine Primera División winning managers | |
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Copa Argentina winning managers | |
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Argentina squad – 1995 King Fahd Cup runners-up | ||
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Managerial positions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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