Sevilla is not just literally one of the warmest cities of Spain, when there's a game of football, figuratively the temperature can rise pretty much as well. A sometimes underestimated football city, with one of Spain's most beautiful football derbies. Sevilla plays in the Nervión area of the city, in the wonderful Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán.
When you wal on the Calle Luis de Morales, you should go to the top floor of shopping mall Nervión Plaza. From the rooftop you have a great view on the façade of one of the most pure football stadiums of Spain, the Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán.
A traditional Spanish design, with two tiers and just the main stand covered with a roof. There's place for just under 44.000 fans, on beautiful red seats with the club's name written all over the top tier. But it's the fans that really make this stadium really special. We didn't travel around Spain with a decibelmeter, but it's very likely that the fans of Sevilla produce the most sound of all. The passion of the Sevillistas makes that this stadium gets under your skin and gives you goosebumps.
The fun thing is that it isn't even the official hymne of the club, but the Himno del Centenario (composed for Sevilla's centenary in 2005) has overtook this function in no-time. For every home game, the song is sung - a capella - by the whole stadium. Make sure you don't miss it.
The façade of the main stand of Sánchez-Pizjuán is a piece of art on it's own. A giant crest of Sevilla, surrounded by 60 small pennants of iconic football clubs that played in this stadium. Over the last years, the outside of Sánchez-Pizjuán has been renovated, but the mosaic will never ever be removed: it has become a holy place of the Sevilla fans.
Two different football players, same club, same tragic fate, with 34 years in between. Both Pedro Berruezo and Antonio Puerta collapsed as players of Sevilla during a game and passed away, respectively just 27 and 22 years old. They are immortalized on the outside of Sánchez-Pizjuán, at the entrances of the numbers they wore. Berruezo is portraited at gate 10, Puerta (remarkably Spanish for gate) guards gate 16.
A little further down the road at the Calle Luis del Morales is Hotel Meliá Lebreros, for years now the hotel where Sevilla is staying before home games. On match days it's usually quite a chaos when the team bus leaves to the stadium. It's a journey of just 500 meters, but going by foot would take hours for the players.
Especially on an evening fixture in Sánchez-Pizjuán: make sure to come early! There's little cities where you have as much fun bodega's and tapas bars as in Sevilla, and the area around the stadium is no exception to that. Long before kick-off, it's busy in the streets around Sánchez-Pizjuán, where the fans take their time for food and drinks. Walk around and you'll find a fun bar guaranteed. Don't worry if you can't sit anywhere, in the Sevillian culture it's very normal to eat your tapas standing up.
On the website of Sevilla, you can easily buy tickets for the home games of the club. On the English website it's no possible, so change the language in the right upper corner to Spanish, and then you'll find a button with 'entradas'.
Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán is close to the centre of the city, and is easy to reach with the metro of Sevilla. Metro station Nervión is under the big junction close to the stadium, line 1 takes you there in a couple of minutes from Puerta de Jerez, in the city centre. From train station Sevilla Santa Justa, it's approximately a 15 minute walk to Sánchez-Pizjuán. You can also go there by bike: everywhere in the city are public bikes parked, which you can take quite cheap after you've downloaded the Sevici app.
Beeld: Coddou, Shutterstock, SANTOS
