New pitch, new start: Rayo Vallecano ready to unveil Vallecas makeover against Athletic Club
Rayo Vallecano's brand new pitch gets its first competitive outing against Athletic Club on Saturday after weeks of chaos caused by winter damage.
Vallecas is getting a fresh lick of grass this weekend — and Athletic Club have the honour of being the first away side to tread on it.
What happened to the old pitch?
It’s been a proper nightmare for Rayo over the past few weeks. The original surface deteriorated badly during winter, with the San Silvestre New Year’s Eve race — which saw the pitch covered for extended periods in low temperatures — doing serious damage. The knock-on effects were a right mess:
- The Rayo vs Oviedo fixture had to be suspended
- The Madrid derby against Atlético was moved to a different venue entirely
- The whole pitch had to be ripped up and replaced from scratch
Not ideal, is it.
Enter the new turf
The replacement job has been done by a Catalan company that, as it happens, supplies most of the top-flight clubs in Spain — which throws up an interesting little detail. Both Rayo and Athletic Club actually use the same firm, meaning the underlying structure and arrangement of the turf rolls are virtually identical at both grounds.
Where things differ, though, is in where the grass itself was grown:
- Athletic Club’s pitch — cultivated in La Garrotxa, where the company has a large farm
- Rayo’s new pitch — sourced from abroad, because there simply wasn’t enough domestically grown turf available at short notice
So same bones, different origins. A bit like two cousins who grew up in different countries, if you want to get poetic about it.
Is it ready to play on?
Short answer: yes. La Liga’s technical staff have signed off on the work, and the groundskeepers have been putting in the hours to make sure the surface is properly bedded in. Rayo are only planning one training session on it before matchday, which suggests confidence that it’ll hold up.
The weather in Madrid is playing ball too — no rain forecast, overnight temperatures staying above 7°C, and highs of around 20°C during the day. Decent conditions for a new pitch to settle.
The bigger picture
For Rayo, getting their home ground back in proper nick is a relief after weeks of disruption. For Athletic Club, they’ll be hoping a pristine new surface suits their passing game — though knowing Rayo’s Vallecas, the atmosphere will be anything but pristine regardless of what’s underfoot.
It’s a tasty La Liga fixture in its own right, and now it’s got a bit of added novelty — the first match on a brand new pitch always has a certain something about it.