Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos
Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos
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Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos

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Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos

The Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos (Latin American Spanish pronunciation: [esˈtaðjo nasjoˈnal ˈxuljo maɾˈtines ˈpɾaðanos], lit.'Julio Martínez Prádanos National Stadium') is an association football stadium in Santiago, Chile. Located in the Ñuñoa commune, it is part of the Estadio Nacional Sports Park, a 62 hectare sporting complex which also features tennis courts, an aquatics center, a modern gymnasium, a velodrome, a BMX circuit, and an assistant ground/warmup athletics track.

Construction began in February 1937 and the stadium was inaugurated on December 3, 1938. The architecture was based on the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany. The stadium was one of the venues for the FIFA World Cup in 1962, and hosted the final where Brazil defeated Czechoslovakia 3–1. In 1948, the stadium hosted the matches of the South American Championship of Champions, the competition that inspired the creation of the UEFA Champions League and of the Copa Libertadores. The stadium was notoriously used as a mass imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial execution facility by the Pinochet dictatorship following the 1973 military coup.

In 2009, a complete modernization plan was unveiled for the stadium and surrounding facilities. President Michelle Bachelet said it would become the most modern stadium in South America. A roof above the stands was initially proposed by Bachelet in order to make the stadium an indoor venue, however, this was never completed. The stadium was the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, and football venue for the 2014 South American Games, and hosted the opening ceremonies and the athletics during the 2023 Pan American Games. The stadium also hosted the opening ceremonies of the 2023 Parapan American Games.

The stadium was built on former farmland, donated in 1918 by landowner and philanthropist Jose Domingo Cañas. The first sporting event in the new stadium took place on 3 December 1938, with a friendly game between the Chilean club Colo-Colo and Brazilian club São Cristóvão, with the former winning 6–3.

It has hosted all matches of the 1941, 1945 and 1955 South American Football Championships, and several matches of the 1991 and 2015 Copa América.

The stadium hosted the final stages of the 1959 World Basketball Championship. It was held outdoors because the intended venue, the Metropolitan Indoor Stadium, was not ready in time.

In the early 1960s, under the government of Jorge Alessandri, the stadium was expanded to host the 1962 FIFA World Cup. The main modification was replacing the velodrome that surrounded the stadium with galleries, thereby increasing its capacity to around 95,000.

The stadium hosted group stage games between Italy, West Germany, Switzerland and Chile, including a notoriously ill-tempered and violent clash between Italy and Chile which became known as the Battle of Santiago. A quarter-final, a semi-final, the third place play-off, and the final were also held at the ground, where Brazil was crowned world champions for the second time. In the third-place play-off, Chile defeated Yugoslavia 1–0, marking the team's greatest success in international football.

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