Deportivo Riestra
and
Barracas Central
, old connoisseurs of promotion football, will face each other today for the first time in the top category for the third date of Group A of the
Professional League Cup
(LPF).
The match will mark the historic event that means that
the Guillermo Laza stadium
will be the scene, for the first time, of an event in the first division of local football.
It will start at 5:00 p.m. and will have Pablo Dóvalo as the main referee.
In the preview, the Pompeya club shared a video showing what its small and young stadium looks like, which shows everywhere the energy drink that serves as the main sponsor of the institution.
Substitute benches with brand new and shiny seats, the substitute benches converted into Speed cans and the small stalls decorated as if it were the VIP of a bowling alley, show a scenario that escapes the general rules of Argentine football.
The first striking fact is the capacity of Guillermo Laza: he is the one with the smallest capacity in the elite of Argentine football, coincidentally dethroning that of his rival this afternoon, Claudio Tapia of Barracas Central.
There is talk of a total capacity of 4,400 spectators.
Riestra, youngest in the LPF, adds one unit in the classification and has just lost 2-0 with Argentinos Juniors, in La Paternal.
Barracas Central, whose coach is the Uruguayan Alejandro Orfila, lost 2-0 in their last appearance against River Plate, last Wednesday on the Lanús field.
The last two confrontations between both teams took place in the 2018-2019 season, in the Primera B Metropolitana championship.
On that occasion, in the Nueva Pompeya neighborhood there was a goalless draw, while in Olavarría and Luna the local Barracas won, 1-0, with a goal from Luciano Romero.
The story of Guillermo Laza, the Riestra court
Riestra was founded in 1931 and has its headquarters in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Nueva Pompeya, at 2300 Del Bañado Street. Nearby it had its first pasture, in Riestra and Agustín de Vedia, and then moved to Lacarra and Riestra, in Villa Soldati. , where its first stadium was built in 1950.
Riestra played there until 1981, when the Military Dictatorship expropriated the land by force and with a mechanism typical of those leaden years, forcing the club to move to locate its field in Bajo Flores.
Something similar had happened to San Lorenzo, its neighbor there in Bajo Flores, in the deep south of Buenos Aires, the most punished area of the richest city in the country.
Riestra built his property and his court on the corner of Ana María Janner and Avenida Varela, in front of Barrio Ricciardelli (also known as Villa 1-11-14) and a few meters from Pedro Bidegain, the home of Ciclón.
The Guillermo Laza, named in honor of a former president, was inaugurated in 1993, the same year that the New Gasometer was presented to society.
But Riestra was always much more humble, or at least it was in the last 30 years.
With a current capacity of 3,000 spectators and only three small stands, the first match was a 1-0 victory for the local team against Atlas.