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Lucas Castromán
Personal information
Full name	Lucas Martín Castromán
Date of birth	2 October 1980 (age 44)
Place of birth	Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Height	1.74 m (5 ft 9 in)
Position(s)	Attacking midfielder, Right midfielder, Right winger
Youth career
	Vélez Sársfield
Senior career*
Years	Team
1997–2000	Vélez Sársfield
2000–2003	Lazio
2003–2004	→ Udinese (loan)
2004–2007	Vélez Sársfield
2007–2008	Club América
2008	→ Boca Juniors (loan)
2009–2010	Racing Club
International career‡
1997–1999	Argentina U-20
2000–2005	Argentina
Medal record
	30
	*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 00:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC); ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 00:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Lucas Martín Castromán (born 2 October 1980) is a retired Argentine footballer, who played as an attacking midfielder, right midfielder, or right winger.

Career

Castromán began his professional career with Vélez Sársfield in 1997, with Marcelo Bielsa as a coach. His consistent performances in midfield awarded him a lucrative transfer to S.S. Lazio in the Italian Serie A, in 2001. There he became suddenly popular amongst Lazio's fans because of a late equalising goal scored in the very last minute of a derby against cross-city rivals AS Roma that were leading the game 2–1 until then.^[1] During his time at Lazio, he was awarded an Italian passport, thus counting as an EU player.

In 2003, he was loaned to fellow Italians Udinese^[2] before returning to Vélez in 2004.

Castromán, a firm favourite with the Vélez fans, reinforced his place in the history of the club by helping the team to win the Argentine Primera División Clausura tournament in 2005 after the club's run of 7 years without a trophy. During that tournament, Vélez' coach Miguel Ángel Russo, seeing the team's position of right and left winger were well covered by Jonás Gutiérrez and Marcelo Bravo, used Castromán as a second striker. Castromán played at great level in his new position, and was the team's topscorer along Rolando Zárate during the aforementioned Clausura tournament.^[3] After personal differences with Vélez Sársfield coach, Ricardo La Volpe, Castromán decided it was time to change teams, joining Club América of Mexico.

After only six months with Club América he was transfer listed on 17 December 2007 putting an end to his time with the club where injuries, poor physical condition and poor discipline on and off the field led to his departure. He was loaned to Boca Juniors for US$1,050,000. Though not a first choice player in Boca, he was part of the Apertura 2008 and 2008 Recopa Sudamericana winning teams.

He signed a one-year contract with Racing Club de Avellaneda on 6 February 2009.^[4]

National team

Castromán earned 5 caps for Argentina between 2000 and 2005.

National team statistics

^[5]

Argentina national team
Year	Apps	Goals
2000	1	0
2001	0	0
2002	0	0
2003	3	0
2004	0	0
2005	1	0
Total	5	0

Honours

Vélez Sársfield

Argentine Primera División (2): Clausura 1998, Clausura 2005

Boca Juniors

Argentine Primera División (1): Apertura 2008
Recopa Sudamericana (1): 2008

Argentina U-20 national football team

South American Youth Championship (1): 1999

References

^ Andrea di Nicola (29 April 2001). "La Lazio riacciuffa un derby in cui non-sperava più" [Lazio grasp again a derby after almost losing hope]. la Repubblica (in Italian). Rome. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
^ "Double signing for Udinese". UEFA. 31 August 2003. Retrieved 27 January 2009.
^ Nicolás Balinotti (24 September 2005). "Lucas Castromán, el delantero del momento" [Lucas Castromán, the striker of the day] (in Spanish). La Nación. Retrieved 10 October 2009.
^ Racing sign Boca reject Castromán at goal.com
^ Lucas Castromán at National-Football-Teams.com