Real Madrid chose the stage themselves. The 2002 Copa del Rey final, the hundredth in the competition’s history, was scheduled for 6 March 2002 at the Santiago Bernabéu, the date and venue picked as the centrepiece of the club’s centenary celebrations. Madrid, newly crowned FIFA’s Club of the Century, expected to lift the trophy at their own birthday party. Deportivo were invited as the opposition.
What followed became one of the most retold nights in Spanish cup history, and Spanish football’s press gave it a name built to last: el Centenariazo, coined in the spirit of the Maracanazo, a catastrophe named after the party it ruined.
The match
Deportivo won 2–1. Sergio González and Diego Tristán scored the goals that silenced a stadium dressed for a coronation, and Dépor lifted the Copa del Rey for the second time in the club’s history, seven years after the first, in 1995.
It was not a smash-and-grab. The Super Dépor generation (Valerón’s touch between the lines, Mauro Silva’s screening, Tristán at the peak of his scoring years) was at that point one of the best sides in Europe, a league champion two seasons earlier and a Champions League quarter-finalist that same spring. Madrid had the galácticos; Deportivo had a team. On the night, the team won.
Why it still matters
Cup finals get forgotten; humiliations do not. The Centenariazo endures because of its setting, the wrong result, in the wrong stadium, on the most carefully chosen date in Real Madrid’s modern history. For A Coruña it remains the sharpest proof of what that era’s Deportivo was: a club from a city of 250,000 that walked into the Bernabéu on Madrid’s hundredth birthday and left with the trophy.
The 25th anniversary falls on 6 March 2027, the first one Deportivo will mark as a La Liga club again.
The wider era is covered in The Super Dépor Years; the club’s full trophy record is in Honours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the Centenariazo?
The Centenariazo was the 2002 Copa del Rey final of 6 March 2002, in which Deportivo de La Coruña beat Real Madrid 2–1 at the Santiago Bernabéu, a final Madrid had scheduled at their own stadium as the centrepiece of their centenary celebrations.
Who scored for Deportivo in the 2002 Copa del Rey final?
Sergio González and Diego Tristán scored Deportivo’s goals in the 2–1 win.
Why is it called the Centenariazo?
The Spanish press coined the name after the Maracanazo: the final was staged as Real Madrid’s 100th-birthday showpiece, and Deportivo ruined the party, a shock defeat named after the celebration it spoiled.
Was it Deportivo’s first Copa del Rey?
No, it was the club’s second, after the 1995 triumph against Valencia.
Why was the final played at the Bernabéu?
The Spanish federation scheduled the 100th Copa del Rey final at the Bernabéu on 6 March 2002 as a tribute to Real Madrid’s centenary, which is precisely what made the defeat so resonant.
How good was that Deportivo team?
Among Europe’s best of its day: La Liga champions in 2000, regular Champions League participants, with players like Juan Carlos Valerón, Mauro Silva, Fran and Diego Tristán at their peak.