A FLAGSHIP World Cup 2030 venue is poised to complete an incredible transformation.
Barcelona and Real Madrid will open the new-look La Cartuja Stadium on April 26.
The site in Seville was built for the 1999 World Athletics Championships.
But there will be few signs of its famous track and field pedigree once the revamp is finished.
The athletics track has been ditched – as just one of several major changes.
The stand-out development is an increase in capacity by more than 15,000 to 72k.
And a new ring of stands has been installed to underline the dramatic re-think.
Spain’s sporting chiefs reckon it will be their third main venue at the World Cup in five years’ time, behind only the Bernabeu and Nou Camp.
La Cartuja was also a key part of Seville’s bid to host the summer Olympics in 2004 and 2008.
The area in southern Spain is often called “Europe’s hottest city”.
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But although athletics has warmed to the venue, La Cartuja’s stature was not enough to win the Games for Seville.
However, it did host a thrilling 2003 Uefa Cup final, in which Porto beat Celtic 3-2 – when a little-known and now-abandoned rule came into play.
Entering extra time at 2-2, the Scottish giants then had notorious hardman Bobo Balde sent off.
It gave Porto hope of triumphing with a “silver goal” – whereby the team leading after the first additional 15 minutes takes the trophy.
But the Portuguese club failed to net in that quarter of an hour.
Instead Porto went on to win 3-2, thanks to Derlei hitting his second goal of the night shortly before the end of the second added period.
Seville boasts two LaLiga clubs in Sevilla and Real Betis, but both use their own grounds.
Nonetheless, La Cartuja is Spain’s fifth largest sports stadium and the national team occasionally play there.
And when Betis were banned from their Manuel Ruiz de Lopera stadium in 2007, they switched to the bigger venue for a game against Villarreal.
Not only that, Betis will temporarily use the ground again while their own Benito Villamarín stadium is redeveloped later this year.
La Cartuja has hosted two Davis Cup finals in tennis, four Copa del Rey finals from 2020 to 2023 and was used at Euro 2020.
And it was there that athletics saw one of the great world records of modern time.
American legend Michael Johnson clocked 43.18 seconds for the 400m in 1999, a time unsurpassed until South African Wayde van Niekerk ran 43.03 in Rio 17 years later.
But the finest hour for La Cartuja is scheduled to arrive a decade after that – when the World Cup comes to Spain for only the second time ever.
