Club defensores de chaco

Estadio Defensores del Chaco – stadium description

How did the Estadio Defensores del Chaco come about?

Estadio Defensores del Chaco was created at the initiative of the Paraguayan Football League (later Paraguayan Football Association), and its construction was particularly sought by Enrique Pinho, president of the organization from 1913 to 1923.

One proposal is a major upgrade of the Estadio Defensores del Chaco. An additional narrow tier, known as the “Albirroja Vip,” was then created in the lower part of the eastern stand. In 1930, they played two games in the inaugural edition of the prestigious FIFA World Cup. Paraguay lost the first game against the national football team of the United States.

The stadium usually hosts the Paraguayan national team, and the venue serves as the most important stadium in the country and is the de facto national stadium.

The Copa América tournament has been played in Paraguay only once, in 1999, and the Estadio Defensores del Chaco, as one of the five venues for this competition, naturally acted as the most important one, where the tournament final, among others, was played.

Paraguay also hosted Copa América matches in 1975, 1979 and 1983, when the tournament had no host.

The main stand in the upper part has glass boxes and a sparse canopy.

The stadium has a Paraguayan football museum, admission to which is free. The stadium was unusable after this period and took four years to repair. In 1990, they lost a decisive world championship match for the first time in their history. The club was founded in 1902. On the opening day, the deciding match for the national championship was played in the new stadium, in which Libertad defeated Olimpia 1–0.

Club Olimpia also won the first leg of the two-legged tie. In 2021, a series of renovations were carried out to modernize the venue, including refurbishing the interior and VIP boxes, installing new seats and LED floodlights.

In 2023, thanks to a sponsorship agreement with ueno bank, the stadium was renamed Estadio ueno Defensores del Chaco.

What will be the future of Estadio Defensores del Chaco?

On October 11, 2023, FIFA announced that Spain, Portugal and Morocco will host the 2030 World Cup.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the World Cup, a gesture was also made to Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay, which will each host one game of the tournament at the start of the championship.

At the end of July 2024, on the occasion of the publication of the bid of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, as well as Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to host the 2030 World Cup (the so-called “bid book”), proposals were presented for a stadium in Paraguay to host a single World Cup match.

Two concepts were presented in the bid.

That same year, Uruguay's national team also won Olympic gold medals.

All this led to the decision to give the Uruguayans a special honor in Paraguay, and the stadium was briefly named Estadio Uruguay.

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During the War of the Chaco between Paraguay and Bolivia (1932–1935), the stadium became a recruiting and troop concentration point.

The Spanish football giants Real Madrid scored twice against Club Olimpia in the match. Pinho gained support for the idea among government officials. In 1974, the facility was named after the Chaco defenders of the war against Bolivia (Estadio Defensores del Chaco). Olimpia won the South American championship for football clubs in 1979 for the first time in their history after defeating the Argentine side Boca Juniors.

The world championship for football clubs

In 1980, Olimpia won their first world title after beating the Swedish club Malmö FF in Asunción in front of 47,000 fans.

The facility has repeatedly hosted Copa Libertadores final matches, when a two-match series was played in the final.

On March 2, 1980, the Estadio Defensores del Chaco hosted the second leg of a two-game encounter for the Intercontinental Cup, in which Club Olimpia defeated Sweden's Malmö FF and won the trophy.

The stadium also hosted matches of the South American youth championship.