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Star shines on headquarters this month
Inter Milan forward and Argentinan national player Julio Ricardo Cruz visited Lotto Sport Italia this month, his technical sponsor since 2003.
At the Trevignano headquarters, the Argentine star met Lotto President,Andrea Tomat, and greeted all the employees. But his visit was, above all, a chance to meet the team of the double-lozenge company's Research and Development Centre.
Cruz’s relationship with Lotto goes beyond his sponsorship.He has worked extensively with the Development Centre's engineers on two important projects.
He has been very much involved in the special project Lotto is creating for the 2008 European Football Championship, as well as the testing of different technologies aimed at taking sports-footwear stability to new levels. This latter initiative involves a path of technology research and laboratory experiments, which takes advantage from the invaluable contribution of such a skilled player.
After achieving many successes with the most important teams within the Argentine championship and at international level with his country's national team, from 1997 to 2000 Julio Cruz played for Feyenoord, where he averaged over one goal every two matches and won several cups and championships. In 2001, the Argentine bomber made his debut in Italy's "Serie A" and, since 2003; he has been wearing the black-and-blue Inter Milan strip.
With a powerful, athletic physique, he has often been said to be gifted with excellent technique. The latest occasion of his thrilling of thousands of Inter fans was on 11 March in the Derby with Milan, when, being on the field for just one minute - and wearing his blue-and-white Zhero Gravity boots - Julio scored the crucial equalising goal that paved the decisive way for the victory of the team trained by Mancini.
With 9 goals to his credit already this season, Julio has hit the back of the net 50 times wearing the Inter Milan jersey, in matches ranging from the Champions League, Italian Championship and Italian Cup, and can be truly proud of having the best average of minutes played and goals scored.
In other news, Lotto Sport Italia has announced a licensing agreement with the Brazilian company Filon Confecções Ltda.
The agreement, which was made official at a press conference held in Brazil on 10th April, provides for a licence which will allow Filon Confecções to manufacture and market Lotto branded products throughout Brazil until 31st December 2009,with a renewal option for a further three years.
“Landing in Brazil is an important breakthrough for Lotto,” commented Andrea Tomat, President of Lotto Sport Italia.“The combination of our product expertise and our new partner’s coverage of the country’s territory plus its consolidated experience in soccer,will allow us to achieve significant results in a country which is the symbol of soccer.Great passion for this sport is part of Lotto’s DNA as well as of Brazil’s people – many of its greatest stars are linked to our brand today,with Cafu, Dida, Doni and Amauri standing out. I am sure that we will soon see the Lotto double diamond logo in prominence in the Brazilian league championship too.”
