The shocking story of the Los Angeles stadium where Argentina plays: from the first Olympic gold in athletics to the birth of Scaloneta

The friendly match that the Argentine team will play this Tuesday at 11.50pm against Costa Rica, in its second presentation at the first meeting FIFA 2024, will be held in a unique setting, the Memorial Colosseum of the Angels. A stadium with a very particular architecture and a centuries-old life full of historical moments and with a very special meaning for the white and blue sport, which celebrated an unforgettable golden achievement there more than ninety years ago.

The headquarters, located next to the campus of University of Southern California (THE Trojansthat institution’s varsity league football team is local to the stadium), it is the only sports facility that has hosted two Olympic Games, those of 1932 and 1984; and will receive the appointment for the third time in 2028. In that first edition, Juan Carlo Zabala He won the first gold medal in Argentine and South American athletics.

On August 7, 1932, the young “Creole Rhea” He signed one of the most remarkable performances by an Argentine athlete at the Games. Because he completed the 42.195 kilometers of the marathon in 2h31m36 and set the new Olympic record for the distance, in a race that was defined with the first four fighting for the medals already inside the stadium. And because at 20 years and 301 days he became the youngest Olympic champion of that grueling event, a mark that no one has yet managed to take away from him.

The Colosseum was intended to be a monument honoring Los Angeles’ veterans WWI, although since 1959 it has been dedicated to all members of the United States military who fought in that war. Its construction began in December 1921 and ended in May 1923. And seven years later it was renovated for the first time for the 1932 Games.

In that first modernization the capacity was expanded from 75,000 to more than 100,000 spectators and the Olympic cauldron was erected, also used for the 1984 event and usually illuminated on special occasions. Even today it continues to adorn, together with the five rings, the central arch of the emblematic peristyle, a structure composed of 24 columns and six lateral arches on each side that rise at the eastern end of the stadium.

On these columns, 64 commemorative plaques dedicated to illustrious people or events, sporting or otherwise, which have marked the history of the place are visible.

In that “Court of Honour“they have their own space, for example, Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Modern Era Olympic Games; the American athlete Jesse Owenswinner of four golds at the 1936 Berlin event; Nelson Mandelawho gave a speech there during his first visit to the United States in 1990 after regaining his freedom; John F. Kennedy, who launched his presidential bid there during the 1960 Democratic Convention; and the Pope John Paul IIafter having celebrated a mass there in 1987.

There are also plaques to commemorate the 1984 Games, the title of the Games Dodgers In the MLB 1959 and the athletes of the Israeli team died in the terrorist attack on the Olympic Games. Munich 1972.

For the second Olympic event held in that Californian city, the Olympic Gateconsisting of a pair of life-size nude bronze statues of a male and female athlete on a structure of pillars and lintels weighing nine thousand kilos.

Declared National and California Historic Landmark in 1984, it is also a place with a lot of history for American sports, as it helped start the migration of professional teams to that country’s West Coast. In its hundred years it was home to several important groups, such as the rams of the NFL (two periods between 1946 and 2019), the Dodgers of the MLB (1958-1961); and the Lakers (1960-1967) and the Clipper (1984-1999) of NBA.

It was also the site of countless concerts (from Michael Jackson AND Madonna Until U2 AND Pink fluid), cultural and political meetings, meetings and duels of different disciplines.

In 1967, the inaugural edition of the superbowlwhich it replaced that year Championship match and who has since defined the champion of NFL. THE Green Bay Packerswinners of the National Football League, defeated the Kansas City Chiefswho had retained the American Football League, and raised the first trophy in one of the most spectacular and marketing events in sports.

In March 2008, the Dodgers and Boston Red Soxtwo of MLB’s biggest attractions, drew a crowd of 115,300 for a performance for the books Guinness as the baseball game with the largest number of spectators.

From 2022 it will also host the Busch Clash of Lightsa non-scoring event in the championship nascar, which brings together at the beginning of February the drivers who obtained pole position in the previous season and the winners of previous editions of the race. For the occasion the stadium is transformed into a 400 meter long running track.

Football also has its place in the history of the Colosseum. The first duel of this sport was played in 1965 between United States of America AND Mexicofor the 1966 World Cup qualifiers. Since then, the North American team has played 22 matches in that stadium.

Although, curiously, it was the Mexican who played there the most times, with 86 appearances. And the attendance record for a football match was set by two European teams, real Madrid AND Manchester Citywhich in July 2017 defined the International Championship Cup in front of 93,098 people.

Today, more than 500 matches have already been played in a stadium which, after the last renovation in 2019, has a capacity of almost 78 thousand seats and which is also a special place for the Argentine national team.

At the Los Angeles Coliseum the success story “It was Scaloni”. There, the Albiceleste team played its first match with the Santa Fe player as coach (still interim at the time). It was 8 September 2018, when the Argentines beat Guatemala 3-0, in the first friendly after the World Cup in Russia, and took the first step in the adventure that would end with the exciting consecration in Qatar 2022.

On Tuesday they will return to that stage with a lot of history, many memories and a couple of unforgettable moments for the blue and white sport.