The stadium was demolished in 2020, and the site is now a park
The Estadio Vicente Calderón, Atlético de Madrid's home until 2017, has been demolished. The last stand still upright came down in early July 2020. Where the pitch used to be there is now a park, the Parque Atlético de Madrid, and its opening ceremony was held on 9 December 2024. A time capsule is buried at the spot that was once the centre of the pitch, with a commemorative stone slab on top. Metro line 5 gets you there. Below I go through what you can see on the site, how the main stand was built over a motorway, and why the Calderón's "last match" has more than one answer.
The whole site was landscaped as the final stretch of Madrid Río, the park that runs along the Manzanares, and the Parque Atlético de Madrid takes up its central part.
The stadium was built so that the M-30, Madrid's ring motorway, passed underneath the main stand. That section of road has since been covered over and turned into a tunnel, with the park on top. In 2021 the city chose a contractor for the work, which covered 620 metres of the road.
The site today has a long, narrow lawn and a commemorative slab on the old centre spot
Work on the park covered more than 67,000 square metres, and more than 1,200 trees were planted. Covering the M-30 left the ground at three different heights, so the park is laid out in three sections to match.
The section nearest the river was built directly on the deck that covers the M-30. A cycle path winds through a pine wood there and links up with Madrid Río to the north and south, and you can also walk in from the San Isidro bridge. The M-30 that once ran under the main stand now runs beneath those pines.
In the central section, where the stadium stood, there is a long, narrow lawn with rounded ends. The city likens the shape to a Roman circus and says it is meant to recall the old football ground's character as a place of spectacle. Three rows of trees surround the lawn, and a three-lane running track goes round it. It is not a certified athletics track.
On the day of the opening, Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, club president Enrique Cerezo, club legend Adelardo and others put items into the time capsule and buried it. The lists of contents published by the city and the club do not fully match, but both include a seat from the stands, a stone, a piece of turf, the club flag and shirt, a photograph of the first goal scored at the stadium and the poster for its first match. The slab is carved with an image of the stadium and the years "1966-2017".
The land around the park is a redevelopment area called Mahou-Calderón, which was owned by Atlético and the brewer Mahou. In December 2018 the city, the club and Mahou signed an agreement on how the development would be carried out, and the plan at that point allocated most of the buildable floor space to housing.
The nearest stations are Pirámides and Marqués de Vadillo on Metro line 5
esMadrid, the city's tourist board, gives Marqués de Vadillo and Pirámides on Metro line 5 as the nearest stations. Cercanías commuter trains also stop at Pirámides. The address is listed as Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto, 67, and plenty of bus routes pass by, including the 17, 18 and 23.
If you want to fit the Metropolitano stadium tour and a visit to the old site into the same day, the column on Madrid without a match suggests an order. For a day when Atlético are playing, see the matchday guide to Madrid.
A stadium with a motorway running under its main stand
The stadium opened on 2 October 1966 under the name Estadio Manzanares. The opening game against Valencia finished 1-1, and Luis Aragonés scored the stadium's first goal.
It was renamed Vicente Calderón on 14 July 1971. After refurbishment it reopened on 23 May 1972 with a friendly between Spain and Uruguay. Some sources put the renaming in 1972, but that was the year of the reopening. The president it was named after is profiled in a separate column on the man himself.
The architects had an extra problem to solve, because the stadium had to span the M-30 running underneath. The stands were split into a U-shaped section that kept clear of the road and, on the west side facing the river, a main stand that sat on top of it.
LaLiga's official website describes it as the first all-seater stadium in any of Europe's major leagues. Capacity figures vary quite a lot from source to source, with 62,000 and 66,000 both given for the opening, but it was later reduced for safety reasons to about 55,000.
Besides Atlético's own games, the stadium staged other big matches. Three second-round games of the 1982 World Cup were played there, and between 1973 and 2017 it hosted 14 Copa del Rey finals. The 1975 final was Real Madrid against Atlético, and after a 0-0 draw Real won on penalties, so Atlético watched their great rivals take the trophy in their own stadium. Michael Jackson, Madonna and the Rolling Stones all played concerts there as well.
Three "last matches", and the stadium stayed open to the public even longer
The Calderón's "last match" comes with several dates, because each one refers to a different game.
Atlético's last competitive match there was against Athletic Club on the final day of the Liga season, 21 May 2017. Fernando Torres scored twice and Ángel Correa added one near the end for a 3-1 win. After the match there was a ceremony honouring the stadium and the club's players down the years.
The last competitive match at the stadium itself was the Copa del Rey final six days later, on 27 May, when Barcelona beat Alavés 3-1.
The next day, the 28th, Atlético legends played a team of stars from around the world. That was the last match ever played on the pitch, and the last goal was scored by Pedraza, who came through the club's academy.
The last day the public could get into the stadium was 30 September 2017. That was when the stadium tours and museum visits that had run all summer came to an end, and close to 4,000 people visited on the final day alone. Over the summer, nearly 3,200 visitors had taken a penalty there. By then the new stadium had already been open for two weeks.
After the move, the club offered season-ticket holders the chance to take their own seat home if they wanted it. The ashes of supporters that had rested in the stadium's columbarium were reportedly moved to the Metropolitano before the south stand was knocked down.
Demolition started in February 2019, beginning with the parts of the stands that were not over the road. In November 2019 a temporary diversion for the M-30 was built across what had been the pitch. Once the traffic had been moved onto it, work began on taking down the west-side main stand that stood over the original M-30. With so many homes nearby, no explosives were used, and the stands were broken up with heavy machinery. Some of the demolition material was also used as backfill when the park was built.
51 years between two Metropolitanos
The new home ground opened on 16 September 2017 with a Liga match against Málaga on matchday 4. Antoine Griezmann scored in the 61st minute and Atlético won 1-0. The opening ceremony before kick-off paid tribute to the grounds the club had called home over the years: Retiro, O'Donnell, Metropolitano and Vicente Calderón.
This was not the first home ground called Metropolitano. Atlético played at a stadium of that name from 1923 to 1966. It took the name from the owner of the land it stood on, the Compañía Urbanizadora Metropolitana, the urban development company that built Madrid's first metro network. Madrid City Council calls it "the first Metropolitano". The old ground was pulled down after the move to the Calderón, which means the Calderón's 51 years sit between two Metropolitanos. The current home, the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, is covered in the complete guide for first-time visitors.
I never saw a match at the Calderón. Even so, it is sad that a stadium used for 51 years was torn down without a single stand left. But as I read up on the site, I found that some things did remain. The place where the pitch was is now a park, and under the old centre spot lie a seat from the stands and a piece of turf. Some fans took their seats home.