Mendizorrotza

Mendizorrotza sits close to the centre of Vitoria-Gasteiz, on Cervantes Ibilbidea, and it has carried Alavés through more than a century without ever changing its name or taking on a sponsor. The ground belongs to the municipality, and it was christened in 1925, a year after it opened, with a Basque word meaning "sharp mountain" — a name that has stuck through every rebuild since.

The stadium has grown in fits and starts rather than in one clean project. A 1982 expansion put up large covered stands on three sides and briefly pushed capacity toward 30,000, a figure the ground has never held since. The shape supporters know today came out of work done between 1997 and 1999, when new corner stands went in, all four sides were rebuilt and roofed, and capacity settled at just under 20,000. The south stand, housing the club offices and dressing rooms, followed in 2000.

Plans announced in December 2016 to expand toward 28,000 seats stalled once the pandemic hit the club's finances, and the idea has since shifted: rather than extend the current ground, Alavés have been weighing whether to build a new stadium altogether instead of reworking this one.

What keeps drawing praise, oddly, is the surface. The hybrid pitch, natural grass reinforced with synthetic fibres, was rated the best in La Liga in 2019, and the club refreshed it in August 2024 with a fibre-injection technique aimed at keeping that footing consistent through a full season.