Article updated: 07/05/2026
As you cross the Rio Ebro and head south along the wide avenidas through to its centre, the city of Zaragoza treats you to some magnificent sites. Its graceful fusion of Moorish, medieval and more recent styles of architecture lifts your hopes and expectations, so much so that when you see La Romareda, the city’s municipal stadium, your initial reaction is one of disappointment. It is an “Is that all there is?” moment. Thankfully, the story of Real Zaragoza is a lot more interesting than the utilitarian and rather undistinguished stadium it plays in.
The citizens of Zaragoza and, for that matter, other parts of Aragon, took their time to fully come to terms with football. Organised competitions did not truly get underway until 1915, a good decade or so later than neighbouring Catalunya. The first important team to emerge in the Aragonese capital was Iberia Sport Club, which was formed in 1917 and went on to dominate the early years of the regional championship. The only real challenge to Iberia came in the form of Sociedad Atletica Stadium, which was founded in 1919 and pipped Iberia to the championship in 1924 & 1925. Another team founded in 1919, Zaragoza Football Club, joined forces with Sociedad Atletica Stadium in 1925 to create Club Deportiva Real Zaragoza. However, Iberia continued to reign supreme and featured in the inaugural season of La Segunda in 1928-29. Iberia was undoubtedly helped by the foresight of its directors, who had developed the city’s first purpose-built stadium, the Campo de Torrero. Opened on 7 October 1923 with a match against CA Osasuna, Torrero was located to the southeast of the city centre and had a final capacity of 20,000. On 18 March 1932, Iberia and Club Deportiva Real Zaragoza agreed to merge and form FC Zaragoza, or as we know them today, Real Zaragoza.
This story moves on to 1956, when work began on a new stadium under the guidance of architect Francisco Riestra. The project cost 21.5 million pesetas, and the ground featured a large covered main stand on the west side. The cantilevered roof covered the upper tier, whilst on the opposite side stood a large two-tiered terrace. The smaller end terraces were slightly curved, leaving a space of around 8 metres between the touchline and the front of the terrace. The stadium had been built on open fields named La Romareda, just to the south of the city’s university and around 3 kilometres west of the old Torrero ground. It opened on 8 September 1957 with Zaragoza beating Osasuna 4-3 in front of a capacity crowd of 27,000. The new stadium acted as a springboard, as during the 1960s, the club flourished. The cause was helped in no small part by Lapetra, Canario, Marcelino, Santos & Villa, a quintet of players who saw Zaragoza reach unprecedented heights. The club reached the final of The Copa del Rey in four successive seasons, winning two finals and also found success in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup, winning the trophy in 1964. League form wasn’t too shabby either, as Zaragoza finished in the top five places in every season from 1961-68.
As that great team of the sixties broke up, Zaragoza’s form suffered, and the club dropped to La Segunda at the end of the 1970-71 season. Their absence from the top division was brief, as promotion was won with a third-place finish in 1971-72. Steady progress was made over the next couple of seasons, with the club achieving a best-ever second place in La Primera in 1974-75. During the 1976-77 season, La Romareda was extended, with both end terraces gaining an upper tier and covers that linked up with the roof of the main west stand. The new capacity stood at 50,000. Whilst the roofs were going up, the club was going down to the second division again. The 1977-78 season brought the club its first league trophy, with the La Segunda title secured with a point to spare.
In 1978, La Romareda was confirmed as a host venue for the 1982 World Cup and underwent a 120 million peseta refit. This included adding a roof to the newly refurbished east side, adding seating to the upper tiers, and new press facilities in a two-storey block behind the main west stand. This was linked to the ground, and Zaragoza had eyes on using it for their club offices. The municipality baulked at the idea and quickly installed its own bureaucrats after the tournament was over. La Romareda now had a capacity of 46,920 and hosted three matches during the finals featuring Yugoslavia, Honduras and Northern Ireland. They were poorly attended, with the ground barely half-full for the Yugoslavia games and only 15,000 attending the Honduras-Northern Ireland fixture. The participants were commemorated with their names on individual flag poles at the main entrance to the stadium. Now established in La Primera, the eighties saw further success for Zaragoza with a third Copa del Rey secured in 1986 thanks to a 1-0 victory over Barcelona at the Vicente Calderón.
The nineties saw further refurbishment of La Romareda in advance of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. The refit saw seating added behind the south goal and a ring of booths or Palcos added to form a band around the stadium between the first and second tiers. This reduced the capacity to 43,349, not that it was ever remotely tested during the Olympics. The six group matches and one quarter-final at La Romareda attracted a pitiful aggregate of 35,500. Zaragoza continued to thrive in the top flight, finishing third in 1993-94, before securing a fourth Copa del Rey at the end of the season against Celta Vigo. This saw the club enter the following season’s UEFA Cup-Winners Cup, and Zaragoza secured a second European title thanks to Nayim’s astonishing effort, beating Arsenal at the end of extra time. La Romareda was finally converted to an all-seater stadium in 1998 when the lower tiers of the north end and east terrace were seated, giving the ground a current capacity of 33,608.
The start of the new millennium began brightly with a fourth-place finish in the league and a fifth victory in the Copa del Rey, beating Celta Vigo once again, this time at La Cartuja in Sevilla. However, it was really just papering over the cracks, for at the end of the 2000-01 season, in a desperate scramble for survival, Zaragoza escaped relegation by a solitary point. Their 24-year-long stay in La Primera came to an end a year later, when finishing bottom of the league in 2001-02. As before, the club immediately bounced back and finished the 2003-04 season in a creditable twelfth place. In March of 2004, Zaragoza reached the final of the Copa del Rey and won the trophy for a sixth time with a 3-2 victory over Real Madrid at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys. The Spanish Super Cup was won for the first time at the start of the following season, and the club continued to show steady if unspectacular form in the league. Despite this promise and a not-inconsiderable budget, the wheels came off during the 2007-08 season as form fell away in the final quarter and Zaragoza was relegated. Once again, the stay in La Segunda was just a season-long affair, but when they returned to La Primera, Zaragoza struggled to be competitive, dropping back to the second tier in 2013.
As with all major leagues, the revenue from television rights plays an important role. However, the imbalance of the distribution of these funds weighs heavily on clubs such as Zaragoza. This puts extra emphasis on match-day revenue, and despite getting decent crowds in La Segunda, the disparity has had an undeniable impact over the years. When visiting in 2022, it was clear that La Romareda was antiquated and simply not up to providing the modern spectator with the experience they want, or the revenue the club requires. From the outside, the stadium resembles something one used to see in the former Soviet bloc. Its construction of pillars and brick infill, mixed with open mesh fencing that displays the internal skeleton of the terraces, is at best grim. In the southwest corner of the ground stood the strange juxtaposition of El Cuboa. This modern mirrored cube that housed the Department of Urban Planning, next to the beige and ever-so-bland Mundial Press Centre.
Inside the stadium was slightly better, although time had taken its toll. The lower tier is very shallow, and the roof offers it no protection from the elements. The upper tier is covered, but very cramped. That’s not to say that the stadium doesn’t have some nice touches. The palcos, a ring of segregated booths that sit between the two tiers, offer a great view and are just close enough to the rear to gain some benefit from the roof. La Romareda’s goal nets are also a delight and have to be among the deepest anywhere in world football. La Selección has made five visits to La Romareda, the last being in 2022 when they lost 1-2 to Switzerland. Since the turn of the century, there has been plenty of talk about rebuilding La Romareda or relocating, but with greater constraints on public money, all plans were shelved. Finally, in 2024, the club, the local municipality and the Aragonese Government reached an agreement, and work started on the redevelopment of La Romareda.
The complete rebuild of the stadium will cost an estimated €151m and have a planned capacity of 43,000. Work commenced in July 2024 and saw the demolition of Gol Sur, the offices behind the main stand, and El Cuboa. This allowed Zaragoza one last season at an albeit three-sided La Romareda, before the demolition of the rest of the stadium commenced in the summer of 2025. Zaragoza were forced to move to a 20,000-seat temporary stadium on a parking lot that is sandwiched between the Rio Ebro, the Federación de Aragonesa de Fútbol’s HQ & the Universidad de Zaragoza. The hope is that Zaragoza will return to La Romareda during the 2027-28 season. On 17 July 2024, La Nueva Romareda was selected as one of Spain’s eleven stadia to host matches at the 2030 World Cup. The commitment of the club, the municipality and the regional government ensured that their foresight & action outflanked bids from Valencia, Murcia & Vigo. With funding and a sensible time frame in place, it seems that the city will finally get a world-class stadium. Now, it’s over to Real Zaragoza to get their act together!
Estadios de España 