Wednesday, December 14, 2022

December 14, 1947: Estadio Santiago Bernabéu Opens

December 14, 1947: Real Madrid Club de Futbol opens its new stadium, named Estadio Chamartín like the old one. In 1955, it was renamed after the man who got it built, team president Santiago Bernabéu.

Bernabéu the man is not to be celebrated: He was a dedicated follower of Fascist dictator Francisco Franco, which allowed him to fix results in favor of his team until his death in 1978, even after Franco died and Spain became free.
Santiago Bernabéu, with an early version of the European Cup

But the 84,744-seat stadium (it went as high as 129,690 before its conversion to all-seater) is one of the world's great sports palaces. It hosted the Finals of the 1964 European Nations Cup and the 1982 World Cup, making it the 1st to host the Final of both.
It's also hosted 4 Finals of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, which Real Madrid have won a record 14 times:

* 1957: Real Madrid won it on home soil, beating Fiorentina of Florence, Italy, 2-0.

* 1969: AC Milan beat Ajax Amsterdam, 4-1.

* 1980: Nottingham Forest beat Hamburger SV, 1-0.

* 2010: Internazionale Milano of Milan, Italy, beat Bayern Munich, 2-0.

In 2018, CONMEBOL, the governing body for soccer in South America, moved the Final of its version of the Champions League, the Copa Libertadores, to the Bernabéu, because it was the biggest club soccer rivalry on the continent, and the Bernabéu would be, for them, a neutral site. River Plate beat their Buenos Aires, Argentina arch-rivals, Boca Juniors, 3-1.

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December 14, 1947 was a Sunday. Dilma Rousseff, who would later serve as President of Brazil, was born.

Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 34-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers, 28-14 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Boston Yanks -- yes, Yankee fans and Red Sox fans, such a sports team actually existed -- 40-13 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* And the Chicago Cardinals beat the Chicago Bears, 30-21 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

And the All-America Football Conference held its Championship Game. The Cleveland Browns beat the football version of the New York Yankees, 14-3 at Yankee Stadium.

No games were scheduled for the Basketball Association of America, the league that would become the NBA. But the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins played to a tie, 1-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

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