Estadio de Cornellá – El Prat

The new stadium is ready, we’ve got the keys to the Ferrari, and all we’re waiting for is Liverpool to inaugurate it in August. In the mean-time, let me get out some facts about the new place as like all pericos, I am very proud of our “new birdhouse” and glad that the bad taste of relegation that lingered around Montjuic is long gone.

It’s been a long 4 years since construction started, almost 2 years since I saw the barren site that would be our Nou Stadi to replace the Olympic Stadium on the hill, and frankly 8 months since the field was being finalized and the grass was being laid. No problem. 40,000 seats just outside the city in Cornellá – El Prat, close enough to take the train but far enough to discourage the cules.

Dani Sanchez-LLibre, our much maligned President spoke for us best when he said, “This has not been a walk through the Desert our time at Montjuic” and while I wouldn’t go as far I would say that it wasn’t painless, we are a better team for the struggles we have gone through. We challenged for the UEFA Cup against Seville, won two Copa del Reys in 2000 and 2006, and we sternly fought off relegation through sheer determination and guile. We were the best team, on form over the last 2 weeks of the season. Was it a miracle? I don’t know, Pochettino said recently that his hike up Montserrat to ask the Virgin to save the club from La Segunda and financial ruin had already been in the works; a promise he kept from years before when he was still a player at the club.

The real promise is the stadium though. During the unveiling, the Secretary General for Sport of the Generalitat, Anna Pruna describe it, (and I paraphrase) as an “impressive and incredible structure” , and that “the club’s symbol, the parakeet is, like a ‘perico-fénix’, a phoenix like parakeet because when things are at their worst it fell and took flight again. You can’t describe it any other way for the incredible history of this centenary club.”

I never had a club to follow, really follow, until I went to Barcelona. I’ve been through highs, beating Barca at the Nou Camp last year is one, and the lows of threatened relegation and while my life as a perico has just started, I realize there are many others who have struggled their whole lives with the ups and downs. I won’t make my little time with the club compare to that. I can’t. I’m just one more voice, a new voice to a historic club, my club RCD Espanyol and I’m proud of my club today.

Category: Espanyol Team News

Tags: Espanyol Team News, stadium

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