La Cartuja, the stadium that could not become “Olympic”

Located north of the capital and with part of its facilities in the municipal term of Santiponce, fewer and fewer Sevillians are calling “Olympic” to the La Cartuja stadium, and if they do, they are usually accompanied by a certain sarcasm. Constructed as main argument for Seville's candidacy for the 2004 Olympic Games, the venue was precisely inaugurated with a friendly from the Selection Spanish soccer team on May 5, 1999. That day the Red defeated (3-1) Croatia. Three and a half months later, from August 20 to 29, the stadium hosted what has so far been its largest sporting event, a World Athletics Championship of which among other things the world record of 400 meters is remembered Michael Johnson and the gold medal in Marathon obtained by the soriano Abel Anton. The work cost more than 20,000 million pesetas (about 120 million euros, to change) and, needless to say, so far no cauldron has been lit there.

Tonight will be the first official meeting of the Spanish soccer team in La Cartuja, where they have played three more friendlies apart from the one at the opening: before Argentina (11-17-1999, 0-2), Netherlands (15-11, 2000, 1-2) and China (03-06-2012, 1-0). There they also played two finals of the Copa del Rey, in 1999 and 2001, and one of the UEFA Cup, the one in 2003 that Porto then coached by Mourinho beat Celtic of Glasgow.

There have even been elite tennis at La Cartuja. Between its stands Spain won two of the six Davis Cups that it has in the list, those of 2004 and 2011, the latter with an imposing Rafa Nadal against Argentina.

But in recent times more mythical concerts have been held there (AC / DC, U2, Madonna, Depeche Mode, Bruce Springsteen) than major sporting events. The Junta de Andalucía tries to reactivate La Cartuja and shortly before the confinement he reconditioned it, fixed the cover and put a new lawn while signing with the RFEF an agreement to host four Copa del Rey finals in a row. Among them, the one that Real Sociedad and Athletic They should have played last year and that a priori they will play next April. The pandemic has slowed down the empowerment of the venue, something that is being tried to alleviate, at least in a symbolic way, with this Spain-Germany.