On Easter Sunday fans of Atletico Paranaense witnessed the first game at Arena da Baixada under closed retractable roof. This marks the end of reconstruction for the stadium.

Last week the Spanish engineers of Lanik confirmed it’s ready: the first retractable roof system in Latin America was tested on Sunday, when Atletico won against Prudentópolis at Arena da Baixada in the continent’s first ever game under a closed retractable roof.

Following Atletico, we earlier also suggested it was the very first such game in the southern hemisphere, which was soon corrected by our readers. The first such game south of the equator was in fact held in Melbourne.

The system consists of two large panels resting above goal stands on a daily basis. When needed, they can both slide towards the centre at 2m/minute. With the distance to cover at nearly 50 meters it takes 25 minutes for the roof to open/close.

Each segment is 76x49.5m, which means the total surface of retractable roof stands at over 7,500 square meters. Just like other sections of the cover, the steel frames are filled with nearly transparent polycarbonate sheets.

Installation of the retractable roof began in October 2014 after this element had to be dropped from the 2014 World Cup preparations for lack of time. With that complete, Arena da Baixada redevelopment is complete.