Júlio Baptista

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Place in overall rating 12538 of 12842

Place in club Cruzeiro 1 of 16

Place in country Brazil 126 of 652

Place in category midfielder 654 of 4636

Place among midfielders in club Cruzeiro 1 of 4

Place among midfielders in country Brazil 45 of 208

Personal info

Name: Júlio Baptista

Age: 42 years (30 September 1981)

Stature: 181 cm

Weight: 81 kg

Nationality:

Brazil

Status

Role: midfielder / edit.

Club: Cruzeiro / edit.

Júlio Baptista. Biography

Júlio César Clement Pereira Baptista plays as an attacking midfielder for Cruzeiro.

The first team of this footballer was São Paulo where he played since 2000 till 2003. Then he moved to Sevilla who purchased him from the Brazilian side for £2 million. Baptista spent a successful time there as he made 81 appearances in all competitions with 50 goals during 2 seasons. Such a tremendous statistics deeply impressed Sevilla’s rivals Real Madrid who made a generous £16.9 million bid for the Brazilian.

Such an offer was difficult to deny so Júlio spent three La Liga campaigns from 2005 to 2008 with Real Madrid. The time he spent there wasn’t as wonderful as he might have expected it to be. Such rivals for a place in the starting 11 as Zinedine Zidane and Guti didn’t leave him any chance to become a firm starter. So in the season 2006/07 he went on a year-long loan to Arsenal FC where he featured in 35 games with 10 goals in all tournaments. As Baptista returned to Madrid he started to deliver quality football thus keeping Guti on the bench but soon he gave up his positions and as a result moved to AC Roma on August 15, 2008 for €9 million transfer fee.

Júlio stayed at Rome for 2.5 seasons (57 appearances, 12 goals) until he signed for Málaga in January of 2011. The terms of the deal presupposed the parties’ collaboration till 2014.

He marked his first game for the Andalusian club in January of the same year in an away 1-4 defeat against Barcelona. On October 1, 2011 Baptista scored a dramatic overhead winner on his 30th birthday in a 3-2 home victory over Getafe. Unfortunately by the end that same game he got an injury that at first seemed as a minor one but soon required a surgical intervention and eventually drove him out of the season making Júlio leave for Brazil to recover.

Haunted by injuries, Júlio left Malaga in the summer 2013 and returned to Brazil joining Cruzeiro.

As for his international career in 2001 Baptista joined the national team of Brazil for the first time. In total he made 47 appearances with 5 goals for the Seleção.