Estadio Morelos is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

located along Periférico Independencia, in the Independencia sector, near the base of Cerro del Quinceo in northwest

Morelia Morelia (; from 1545 to 1828 known as Valladolid) is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Morelia in the north-central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital and larg ...

Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...

México Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It was the site of professional football teams, Monarcas Morelia in the top division of Mexican football and Monarcas Primera A in the league under that. This structure holds various events, such as concerts, religious gatherings, and

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

. Its official name ''Estadio

José María Morelos y Pavón José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacu ...

'' honors a hero of the

Mexican War of Independence The Mexican War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de México, links=no, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from Spain. It was not a single, co ...

. The stadium has an irregular shape, because the areas behind the goals only have one level and 32 rows, along the side there are 4 levels (one grandstand, one other seating area and two box areas) and 49 stands. According to the Monarcas Morelia website, the capacity of the stadium is 35,000.

History

The city of

before the existence of this structure, counted on the Estadio Venustiano Carranza as the home of first division side,

Atlético Morelia Club Atlético Morelia is a Mexican football club based in Morelia, Michoacán. Founded on 4 June 1950, the club currently plays in the Liga de Expansión MX. The club play their home games at Estadio Morelos. From 1981 to 2020, the club played ...

. In 1984, two years before the

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-team format. Colombia ha ...

held in Mexico, it was officially announced that Morelia would be one of the sites for the tournament, and a scale model of the new stadium was shown, very similar in capacity and structure to the

Estadio Corregidora Estadio Corregidora is a stadium in Querétaro City, Mexico. Named for Mexican War of Independence heroine Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez ("La Corregidora"), it has a capacity of 33,162 and is located on the outskirts of the city of Querétaro, nor ...

Santiago de Querétaro Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, and would be located in the Southeast of the city, on the current grounds of the sport unit of

Adolfo López Mateos Adolfo López Mateos (; 26 May 1909 – 22 September 1969) was a Mexican politician who served as President of Mexico from 1958 to 1964. Beginning his political career as a campaign aide of José Vasconcelos during his run for president, Ló ...

. Excavation work soon began but problems in the foundation led to the suspension of the work and no other sites were sought. The World Cup site was transferred to the

Estadio Sergio León Chavez A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

, in

Irapuato Irapuato is a Mexican city (and municipality) located at the foot of the Arandas Hill (in Spanish: ''Cerro de Arandas''), in the central region of the state of Guanajuato. It lies between the Silao River and the Guanajuato River, a tributary of ...

. Following the league tournaments of 1986–1987 1987–1988, despite not reaching the finals, the local side put on 2 brilliant displays in the liguilla. Demand for the new structure resurged. A group of Michoacán businessmen led by

Luis Álvarez Barreiro Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

, and with support from the new governor,

Luis Martínez Villicaña Luis Martínez Villicaña (April 1, 1939 – March 2, 2011) was a Mexican politician. He served as the Secretariat of Agrarian Reform (Mexico), Secretary of Agrarian Reform under Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid from December 1, 1982, until ...

, created a pro-construction sponsorship which was financed privately by ticket sales. At the conclusion of the construction, the sponsorship was handed over to the state of Michoacán. The stadium was one of the venues for the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup. On February 16, 2016, during his first visit to Mexico,

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

spoke to an estimated 50,000 young people at the stadium.

References

External links

*
World Stadiums entry

Sports venues in Michoacán

Morelos Morelos (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Morelos ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Morelos), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 36 municipalities and its capital city is Cuer ...

Atlético Morelia {{mexico-stadium-stub

History

See also

References

External links