02/04/2007 - JULIO CRUZ AND LOTTO TOGETHER TO DEVELOP INNOVATIVE FOOTWEAR

Ancora un altro successo per gli eventi marchiati Lotto.

Trevignano (Italy), 2 April 2007. - Julio Ricardo Cruz at Trevignano: Inter forward and Argentina national player today visited Lotto Sport Italia, 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 precious chance to meet the team of the double-lozenge company's Research and Development Centre.

Julio Cruz is associated with Lotto by a relationship that goes beyond his sponsorship, contributing with the Development Centre's engineers on two important and innovative projects.
The first is the special project Lotto is creating for the 2008 European Football Championship. The second is the testing of different technologies aimed at taking sports-footwear stability to truly excellent levels. This latter initiative involves a path of technology research and laboratory experiments, which take great advantage from the invaluable contribution of such a skilled player as is Cruz.

After achieving many successes with the most important teams of 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 strip.

With a powerful, athletic physique, he is both formidable in the air and 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 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.