Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos
Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos (originally known as Estadio Nacional) is the national stadium of Chile, and is located in the Ñuñoa district of Santiago. It is the largest stadium in Chile with an official capacity of 48,665. It is part of a 62 hectare sporting complex which also features tennis courts, an aquatics center, a modern gymnasium, a velodrome, a BMX circuit, and an assistant ground/warmup athletics track. Construction began in February 1937 and the stadium was inaugurated on December 3, 1938. The architecture was based on the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany. The stadium was one of the venues for the FIFA World Cup in 1962, and hosted the final where Brazil defeated Czechoslovakia 3–1. In 1948, the stadium hosted the matches of the South American Championship of Champions, the competition that inspired the creation of the UEFA Champions League and of the Copa Libertadores. The stadium was notoriously used as a mass imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial execution facility by the Pinochet dictatorship following the 1973 military coup. In 2009, a complete modernization plan was unveiled for the stadium and surrounding facilities. President Michelle Bachelet said it would become the most modern stadium in South America. The stadium was the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, and football venue for the 2014 South American Games, and will repeat the honors for the 2023 Pan American Games. The stadium was built on former farmland, donated in 1918 by farmer Jose Domingo Cañas. The first sporting event in the new stadium took place on 3 December 1938, with a friendly game between the Chilean club Colo-Colo and Brazilian club São Cristóvão. Colo-Colo won 6–3. It has hosted all matches of the 1941, 1945 and 1955 South American Football Championships, and several matches of the 1991 and 2015 Copa América. The stadium hosted the final stages of the 1959 World Basketball Championship. It was held outdoors because the intended venue, the Metropolitan Indoor Stadium, was not ready in time.
