El Estadio Nacional

El Estadio Nacional (The National Stadium) is right down the street from Grandma Gina's house. We stopped by yesterday and were able to go in and actually see the field. This is the biggest stadium in the country and the World Cup tournament has been hosted here in the past. Dad also played 2 games en El Estadio Nacional when he played for La Union Espanola; one was against the national team and the other against Colo-Colo.

The stadium is impressive, it can seat almost 80,000 people. The stadium has gotten really run down over the years and it's now being renovated. We talked to some of the folks who work at the stadium and they said the seating is being replaced to aluminum benches and the total maximum capacity will be reduced to about 67,000 (a requirement being imposed by FIFA to help crowd control). Part of the reason for changing the seating to benches is because the crowds have pulled out the individual seats that are in place today and thrown the seats on the field. Each section is enclosed by steel fencing with big spikes across the top of the fence. This is another method of controlling the crowd and trying to keep order. (At the La Catolica game we saw - it was a tiny stadium compared to El Estadio Nacional but there was still barbed wire atop the fence that separated the fans from the field.)

We looked at the view of the field from the press box and also saw the special seating area which is reserved for the Chilean President. I can imagine how incredible it would be to see a game played here.