Dubai: Al Ahli’s star striker Batista Libanio Grafite has targeted a clean sweep of trophies by the end of the season next month after his side clinched the Arabian Gulf League crown on Thursday.

“The league title is a just reward for all the hard work we have put in from the start of the season. We are deserving winners, but we must be even more cautious now after this success,” Grafite told Gulf News.

“We are champions because we deserve to be champions. We have worked hard for this,” he added.

However, the Brazilian struck a cautious note as the season now enters the business end. “We have two more finals to contest, and our aim is to win those two as well and have a clean sweep. I think we deserve such a finish,” Grafite said.

Born Edinaldo Batista Libanio in Sao Paulo, he is popularly known as Grafite. After playing in lower division clubs Santa Cruz and Gremio, Grafite transferred to Anyang LG Cheetahs in South Korea’s K-League in 2003.

In the same year, he returned to Brazil and signed for Goias, where he made an immediate impact.

Grafite led top side Sao Paulo to the league title in 2005, the same year he went on to make his Brazil debut.

In January 2006, Grafite signed for French Ligue side Le Mans and, after a season with them, moved to the German Bundesliga.

Here, he went on to spend four seasons at Wolfsburg, where he bagged the top-scorer’s award at the end of the 2008-’09 season. The lanky Brazilian, who turned 35 on April 2, then moved to Al Ahli, where he has been topping the scorers’ charts ever since.

This season, Grafite has played in 29 matches, scoring 21 goals, while last season he made 22 appearances, scoring 24 goals.

However, the newly-crowned league champions and their talisman have a pretty hectic remainder of the season. They travel to Saudi Arabia for their Group D match of the AFC Champions League against Al Hilal on April 15, after which they will face Al Jazira in the final of the Arabian Gulf Cup in Al Ain on April 19.

They then complete their AFC Champions League preliminary-round fixtures against Qatar’s Al Sadd on April 22.