Estadio Gran Parque Central

Football arrived in Uruguay's national bloodstream here, on the pitch at Carlos Anaya 2900, before the country had anything else to point to as proof of what it could do on a world stage. Gran Parque Central opened its gates in 1900, and by 1930 it was ready for something no ground in the Americas had hosted before: matches of the first World Cup, staged in the same tournament as the purpose-built Centenario across town. The original plan called for a stand fit for 100,000, but funds ran short and the number was cut back well before the tournament kicked off, leaving a capacity under 58,000 when the first ball was struck that July.

It has answered to more names than most grounds manage in a century — El Templo Tricolor among Nacional's own, a nod to the club that has called it home since the doors opened, and El primer estadio mundialista, a title no other stadium in the region can claim outright. Two rounds of building work, in 1955 and again in 1977, added tiers to the stands, and the later switch to individual seating settled the ground at its present capacity. The pitch remains natural grass, tended the way it has been for well over a hundred years.

What sets Gran Parque Central apart from the Centenario, its far younger and more famous neighbour, is exactly this: it was there first, hosting World Cup football when the idea of a World Cup was still new enough to need proving. Nacional's supporters have packed it ever since, and the ground carries that history in its walls rather than in any single renovation or record crowd.