Estadio de la Liga Mercedina

Mercedes is not a footballing name Argentina puts on the map, and the ground on Calle 64 has done nothing to change that — it belongs to Club Atlético Mercedes and to a league that plays under its own name here, the Liga Mercedina, rather than borrowing the pull of a bigger neighbour.

It opened on 25 May 1942, a date chosen for the country's own calendar rather than for football — the anniversary of the 1810 revolution — and that alone tells you the stadium was built as a piece of the town's civic life before it was ever a sporting venue. It also carries a second name, Cándido Espina, though nothing on record explains who he was or why the ground took his name.

Work was done on the stands in 2012, aimed at bringing the terraces up to safety standard rather than at adding seats or changing the shape of the place — the kind of maintenance that keeps a small ground running rather than reinventing it.

The pitch is natural grass, as it has always been for a ground of this size and era, and the capacity sits at around five thousand — enough for a Mercedina derby to feel full without ever asking the stadium to be something larger than the town it serves.