Wael Araji.. Early achievements started with a ball of paper

The Lebanese Mazen Arakji, the father of the Lebanese basketball star, Wael Arakji (28 years), revealed that his son’s attachment and love for basketball began when he was two and a half years old, when he made a ball of paper and threw it upwards, before engaging at an early age with the Al-Riyadi Club, which he investigated. With his country, he achieved many domestic and foreign achievements, before he was finally crowned with the best comprehensive player award in the 32nd edition of the Dubai International Championship, which concluded last Sunday, and raised with his team the championship cup for the eighth time in history, after winning the final against his compatriot, the “Dynamo” team. With a result (86-85).

Mazen (55 years), a former basketball player and director of the Lebanese club “Harlem”, told “Emirates Today”: “The discovery of Wael’s talent came through his observation, when he was two and a half years old, of making a ball out of newspaper papers, and taking it outside the house.” To throw it up, before I and his mother made sure to push him at the age of three and a half years to join the sports club next to our house, and then get involved with the (Harlem) club until it closed.

He added, “Wael’s stardom shone at an early age with his return to the athlete, and led him to the Lebanese national team for the Sunni stages, and his superiority over all players in the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup finals, in a vote conducted by the International Federation of the game, with a total of 1430 votes, a difference of 650 votes from the nearest His competitors, the latest of which is here in Dubai, by winning the award for the best overall player in the (Dubai basket), in addition to raising the eighth championship cup with his sports club. Mazen referred to the successful professional experiences of his son outside Lebanon, and said: “Wael played professionally in many Asian and Arab leagues, including in 2018 with the Peakong Fly Dragons team in the Chinese league, and in 2019 he got the opportunity to play with (Dallas Mavericks) in the league.” Al-Saifi of the National Basketball Association, and in 2020 he crowned the Qatari league title with the North, and followed it up in the next season with the North by reaching the final of the competition, and in the same season he won the Tunisian League title with (Al-Ittihad Monastir), and reached with him the final of the African League.