Estadio Monumental

Lore & Background

The Club Atlético River Plate was founded in 1901 and by 1934, it had won two championships. The club was nicknamed Los Millonarios because of the purchase of forward Carlos Peucelle for whom River had paid a huge amount of money. On 31 October 1934, River Plate purchased the land where the club was to build the new stadium in the neighbourhood of Belgrano. El Monumental was built on land reclaimed from the marshy coast of Río de la Plata.

On 25 May 1935, the cornerstone was laid on the Centennial (now Figueroa Alcorta) and Río de la Plata (Udaondo) Avenues. Construction began on 27 September 1936 under the direction of architects José Aslan and Héctor Ezcurra. The initial cost of work reached $4,479,545.80, but was reduced to about 3 million dollars when the committee decided to halt the construction of the north end due to a lack of adequate funds. The stadium was inaugurated on Wednesday 26 May 1938, amidst a crowd of approximately 70,000 people.

The next day, nearly 68,000 spectators witnessed a match between River Plate and Uruguay team Peñarol, with a 3–1 victory for the home squad.

Reader's Guide

The Monumental was originally designed with four double decker stands, but due to insufficient bank loan, the stadium was left with a horseshoe shape. The horseshoe was partially enclosed in 1958, under the club presidency of Enrique Pardo, financed by proceeds from the mn$10 million transfer of Omar Sivori to Juventus of Italy. With the new construction the stadium's capacity reached 90,000. The stadium was remodelled and finally completed to meet the original project after Argentina was awarded the right to host the 1978 World Cup.

River Plate was lent money by the Military Government but struggled to meet repayments due to changes of currency. Monumental was the headquarters for the 1978 World Cup, opening on 1 June for the match between West Germany and Poland, and hosting seven more games including the final between Argentina and the Netherlands. San Lorenzo earned the record for highest number of people attending a match for a visiting team in 1982, bringing more than 70,000 people to River's stadium.

In 1975 when River played Racing for the title (after an 18 years drought) 100,000 were present. At the end of the 1986 and 1996 Copa Libertadores second-leg finals (both against América de Cali), approximately 86,000 spectators were in attendance. For the Argentina versus Uruguay 1987 Copa América semifinal more than 87,000 spectators attended. In 1993, in a qualification match for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Argentina lost 5–0 to Colombia, its greatest ever defeat at home. Argentina had never lost a match in World Cup qualifying within this stadium until Ecuador won 2–0 on 8 October 2015.

Did You Know?

• The construction of the three stands required 50 km of steps, 26,000 square metres of reinforced concrete, and almost 3,000 tons of steel.
• The total length of the seating in the stands is over 70 kilometers.
• The stadium's naming rights were purchased by supermarket chain ChangoMâs in 2022.