The stadium of the Valencia Football Club bears the name of Mestalla. It is the oldest club in the First Division in Spain and has already celebrated its centenary. It was inaugurated on May 20, 1923 with a friendly match in which the local team received Levante FC.
Mestalla is located on Avenida de Suecia, in the city of Valencia. The venue is named for its location, as explained by the club’s own website: “The great house of Valencianism was baptized with the name of one of the ditches that irrigate the city’s orchards.” The Mestalla ditch passed next to the stadium at the beginning and you had to jump over it to access it. The neighborhood in which the field is located also has the same name.
The construction had capacity for 17,000 people in its beginnings. After several renovations throughout a century, it can hold 49,430 spectators in 2023.
The home of Valencia CF has not always had the same name, since for 25 years it carried the name of a person. In 1969 the Mestalla stadium was renamed the Luis Casanova stadium, in honor of one of the club’s presidents and a key figure in its history.
The businessman himself requested in 1994 that the venue recover its original name. “He confessed that that honor had left him completely overwhelmed,” says the club’s website.
Valencia CF was founded in 1919. The team began playing that year at the Algirós field. The small size of the place and the growing popularity of the club led those responsible to look for new land, approximately half a kilometer away, to build a new venue in 1922. A year later, the Mestalla stadium would be inaugurated.