Estadio Gigante de Arroyito

The Estadio Gigante de Arroyito is a football stadium, located in northern area of Rosario in Argentina. It is the homeground of the Rosario Central football team and has a crowd capacity of about 49,000.

History

It was built in the year 1926, The official opening of the stadium was done on 14 November 1926.

It had to be renovated quite a few times later on. The reconstruction process was done in 1957, 1963, 1968 and 1978.

Major matches

On request of the Argentine star Diego Maradona, FIFA inspected the pitch and the football World Cup of 1978 was played here. It hosted six matches of the 1978 FIFA World Cup that was played in Argentina. All of them were group matches.

It also hosted three matches of the 1987 Copa America. The match of Argentina against Brazil in the South Africa 2010 Qualifiers was played here as well.

In all, the Argentina national football team played nine matches on this ground including three friendlies.

Controversies

The only controversy about this stadium was that 1978 World Cup games were played at this venue even after the area was under military coup just two years before the event.

Recent matches

The most recent home game for Rosario Central was against Atletico Rafaela. The game ended in a 2-2 draw.