Venue: Estadio Monumental
Address: Av. Pres. Figueroa Alcorta 7597
Town: Buenos Aires, AR
Capacity: 84,567

The Monumental Stadium, also known as Estadio River Plate and currently known as Mâs Monumental for sponsorship reasons, is an association football stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located in the Belgrano neighbourhood, it is the home of River Plate. It was opened on 26 May 1938 and named after former club president Antonio Vespucio Liberti (1900-1978). It is the largest stadium in both Argentina and all of South America with a capacity of 85,018 and is also home of the Argentina national football team. It was the main venue in the 1951 Pan American Games. It hosted the 1978 FIFA World Cup Final between Argentina and the Netherlands. It has also hosted four finals of the Copa América, most recently in 2011, as well as many finals of the Copa Libertadores. The Club Atlético River Plate was founded in 1901 and by 1934, it had won two championships. At the time, the club was nicknamed Los Millonarios (The Millionaires) because of the purchase of forward Carlos Peucelle for whom River had paid a huge amount of money. On 31 October 1934, River Plate purchased the land where the club was to build the new stadium in the neighbourhood of Belgrano. El Monumental was built on land reclaimed from the marshy coast of Río de la Plata. On 25 May 1935, the cornerstone was laid on the Centennial (now Figueroa Alcorta) and Río de la Plata (Udaondo) Avenues. On 1 December of that year, the Steering Committee presented the approved project in detail to its members at an assembly. They obtained a loan of $2,500,000 from the government and on 27 September 1936, construction began under the direction of architects José Aslan and Héctor Ezcurra. The initial cost of work reached the figure of $4,479,545.80, but was reduced to about 3 million dollars when the committee decided to halt the construction of the north end of the stadium due to a lack of adequate funds. The foundation of the stadium was to be six or eight feet deep. This required open pit excavation to ensure the stability of