Estadio de la Cerámica

Estadio de la Cerámica, still commonly called El Madrigal, is a football ground in Villarreal, Spain, that has been in use since 1923. It serves as the home stadium for Villarreal CF, which plays in La Liga, and has also been the venue for the reserve team Villarreal B since 2023. With a capacity of 23,008—roughly half the population of Vila-real—it ranks as the 26th-largest stadium in Spain and the fifth-largest in the Valencian Community.

The stadium opened in 1923 as Campo del Villarreal and was renamed El Madrigal two years later, after the rural land it was built on. It is also nicknamed the Feudo Amarillo and La Cerámica. On 8 January 2017, just before a La Liga match against Barcelona, the club officially renamed it Estadio de la Cerámica to honor the local ceramics industry.

The ground was inaugurated on 17 June 1923 with a match between Castellón and Cervantes. Its first major renovation came before the 1952–53 season, when the pitch was expanded to 104 by 65 metres, matching the dimensions of Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium. In the 1960s, a small covered stand was added, and the southern stands were completed during the 1971–72 season. Floodlights were installed for a night match on 16 September 1973, funded partly by the city hall, with four towers each topped by nine halogen lamps.

For the club’s 75th anniversary, the southern stand was demolished and rebuilt with a roof, an amphitheatre, and a VIP sector, while a new northern stand was added; work finished in the 1999–2000 season. The grandstand was enlarged in summer 2001, and the changing rooms, which had moved around the ground over the decades, were finally placed beneath the main stand.

In 2005, the stadium was renovated at short notice to meet UEFA Champions League standards. The façade was tiled in yellow, dressing rooms and media facilities were upgraded, the gap between the pitch and spectators was widened, and two restaurants were built.

The most extensive renovation began on 16 May 2022, immediately after the final home match of the 2021–22 season. The roughly €35 million project, designed by IDOM and built by Alviben, involved demolishing buildings at the south-eastern corner, replacing separate stand roofs with a single continuous canopy, and enclosing the stadium into a fully sealed bowl. Houses behind the Fondo Norte were purchased to extend the roof over that stand. The team played home matches at Levante’s Estadio Ciutat de València during construction, and the rebuilt ground reopened on 31 December 2022 for a derby against Valencia. The work used about 2,400 tonnes of steel and 4,400 metres of micropiles.

The stadium sits at Plaza Labrador, about ten kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea and 50 metres above sea level. The pitch measures 105 by 68 metres on a hybrid-grass surface. Since the 2022 remodeling, the ground is a fully enclosed bowl with a single continuous roof, a yellow ceramic façade, and new exterior lighting. Photovoltaic solar panels on the roof aim to make the stadium energy self-sufficient. The project also replaced and spaced out every seat, refurbished one of the two restaurants, added a club museum, and created a multipurpose room overlooking the pitch at the crown of the Fondo Sur.

The stadium has 30 Casals Grocs VIP boxes, each with air conditioning, a live match feed on a television, catering, individual seats, and independent access from the southern stand via three elevators. Of these, five boxes hold 20 people, 23 hold 16, and two hold 12.

Besides Villarreal CF matches, the stadium has hosted selected Spain national team games and, since 2023, Villarreal B home fixtures. In February 2021, Norwegian club Molde FK played a Europa League last-32 home match there due to COVID-19 travel restrictions in Norway.