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Vallecas will open its stadium to experience Rayo’s first European final
Vallecas will not play the final at home, but it will experience it as if the match were also taking place on Avenida de la Albufera. Rayo Vallecano’s stadium will open its doors on Wednesday 27 May so fans can follow live the Conference League final against Crystal Palace, to be played in Leipzig.
The Comunidad de Madrid will install three giant screens, one in front of each stand, in a venue with capacity for just over 14,700 people. Admission will cost €5 and will bring together in Vallecas those unable to travel to Germany who do not want to watch the match at home or in an ordinary bar.
The club will sell tickets in person at the ticket office. Entry will not be included in season tickets, and the opening of sections will depend on demand and capacity control. The idea is for the stadium to work as one large shared stand, not simply as a broadcast.
The final will begin at 21:00 and pit two teams against each other in an unprecedented continental occasion. It will be Rayo’s first European final in its history and also Crystal Palace’s chance to win its first continental title. UEFA places the match at Leipzig Stadium in Germany.
Rayo qualified by eliminating Strasbourg in the semi-finals, with a goal from Alemão and a decisive display by Augusto Batalla, who saved a penalty late in the second leg. That qualification turned an already special season into something far bigger for a club used to living away from the spotlight of major finals.
Many Rayo supporters will be in Leipzig. UEFA allocated 11,500 tickets to Rayo for the final, an enormous figure compared with the capacity of Estadio de Vallecas itself. It will be the club’s biggest European away following in its history, yet thousands of fans will still remain in Madrid.
For them, Wednesday night will have a distinctly neighbourhood feel: entering their usual stadium, watching the screens from the stand and feeling Leipzig a little closer. Vallecas is used to experiencing football with a mixture of pride, protest and belonging. This time it will also do so for a final that only a few years ago seemed almost impossible to imagine.