TEAM COMPOSITION

AAR / Al-Arabi

Doha, Qatar

Team manager	Aman Saeed
Coach	Mauro Grasso
Assistant coach	Mawia Al-Ajnaf
Assistant coach 2	Nasser Al-Sulatti
Doctor
Physiotherapist	Wossimm Hmisswi
Journalist

	No.	Name	Lastname	Shirt Name	Birthdate	Height	Weight	Spike	Block	Country
	1	Ribeiro	Renan	R. Ribeiro	30.12.1989	195	90	0	0	QAT
	2	Mohamed	Jumah	Jumah	14.04.1985	199	70	335	325	QAT
C	3	Saeed	Al-Jamaani	Saeed.S	11.01.1973	186	75	0	0	QAT
	4	Al-Soud	Abdul Aziz	Aziz	11.04.1985	180	75	0	0	QAT
	6	Christian	Pampel	Pampel	06.09.1979	202	100	340	340	GER
L	7	Richard	Lambourne	Lambourne	06.05.1975	190	90	324	312	USA
	9	Ahmed A.M.	Al Bakhet	Ahmed	01.09.1983	198	82	533	344	KSA
	10	Dante	Boninfante	Boninfante	07.03.1977	194	75	334	315	ITA
	14	Matti	Oivanen	Oivanen Ma	26.05.1986	198	90	355	320	FIN
	15	Leonardo	Goncalves Rangel	Leonardo	17.02.1992	204	95	340	340	QAT
	16	Mohamed	Ibrahim	Ibrahim	15.08.1985	207	90	340	340	QAT
	18	Al-Hitmi	Saed	Saeed	13.06.1974	183	86	335	325	QAT

C=Captain L=Libero

Team profile

Al-Arabi had automatically qualified for the last three editions by virtue of being the League champions of the host nation. But they failed to make a strong impression, being unable to advance past the group stage in any of those tournaments.

In 2012 the team came out with a new determination, winning the Asian Club Championship in Shanghai, China, to earn a berth at the Club Words as continental champions.

They are determined to make the most of this turnaround as they fine-tune their preparations for their fourth appearance in the tournament. They know it’s time to make dramatic improvements to their performance, instead of the incremental gains they’ve had before – though Al-Arabi lost all their group matches in 2009, they had one victory in each of the 2010 and 2011 editions. This time, they are eyeing at least a semifinal berth.

Coach profile

Mauro Grasso joined Al-Arabi last month. He has since been racing to get the the team ready ahead of the 2012 Club World Championships.

The Brazilian is aware that Al Arabi has not been able to advance past the group stage in the previous three editions of the championships, all of which were hosted in Doha.

Grasso earlier managed Brazil’s Pinheiros and Puerto Rico’s Mets de Guaynabo. The Brazilian has also coached Italian clubs during a coaching career spanning more than two decades. He said working with a young Al Arabi side is what motivated him to move out of the European and Latin American continent to the Gulf.

The father of four said the Qatar assignment is a learning experience for him and he is eager to meet coaches from the region.