Seville and Cádiz will play on August 6 (9:00 p.m.) the XI Antonio Puerta Trophy at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán, instituted by the Seville club in 2008 to honor the memory of its former international player, who died on August 28, 2007, after that the pandemic prevented the celebration of its last two editions.
Sevilla announced this Friday the lineup of this trophy in memory of its youth squad left-back Antonio Puerta, nicknamed the ‘Left-handed diamond’, and that, with Cádiz’s visit to the Nervión neighborhood stadium, it will recover the Andalusian flavor of its three first years, in which Malaga, Xerez and Granada were the guests.
With this tournament, as sevillismo does in the 16th minute -the number worn by Puerta- of all the matches at its stadium, Sevilla pays tribute to the player who opened the door to the Europa League titles in 2006 with his goal in the extension of the second leg of the semifinals of said tournament against the German Schalke 04.
In addition to expressing its “total gratitude” to Cádiz for agreeing to share “such a special night” for the Sevilla fans, the Nervionense club recalled in its statement that precisely Schalke was the last team to play for the Antonio Puerta Trophy, in 2019.
Previously, with the parentheses of 2015 and 2018 due to lack of business dates and the last two years due to the pandemic, the Argentine Boca Juniors did it in 2017, Roma the previous year, Córdoba in 2014, Almería in 2013, Deportivo de la Coruña in 2012 and Espanyol in 2011, in addition to the aforementioned Málaga, Xerez and Granada.
Sevilla has been champion in eight of the ten editions played and only lost to Granada (2010) and Boca Juniors (2017) in a trophy included in the season ticket and that also recovers its date of celebration in summer, in August, in this case a week before Julen Lopetegui’s team starts LaLiga at the Osasuna field.