Porto Estádio do Dragão
Estádio do Dragão (English: The Dragon Stadium) is a football stadium in Porto, Portugal. Opened in 2003 and designed by Portuguese architect Manuel Salgado, it was constructed to replace FC Porto's previous stadium, Estádio das Antas. It was also built to be one of the venues for the UEFA Euro 2004 tournament. It's capacity is 50,033 for football games. Before construction began, Porto mayor Rui Rio criticized the plan of including housing and shopping for the area, forcing the FC Porto chairman Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, forcing a stop to all building operations which were resumed after an agreement was made.
Each of the stands carries one or two sponsor names; The south stand is named Super Bock, after a Portugese beer brand, the west stand is named Meo, after a telecom service, the east side is named Tmn, after the former mobile network operator and the north stand is named Coca-Cola. The stadium is also characterized by a frame of 21,000 square metres of Azulejo, a form of Portugese painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework. The stadium's name came from the symbol of the city from it's coat of arms, and symbolizes the strength and vitality of FC Porto aswell as the certainty of the club's future.
The arena is home to Porto FC and the Portugal national football team. The first sporting event to be held on the stadium was a friendly match between Porto and FC Barcelona, which featured a debut of Lionel Messi. Soon after, Porto had to return back to Estádio das Antas due to turf problems, which were solved by replanting it in 2004. Other national team matches that took place include a 2005 match between Latvia for the 2006 World Cup qualification, the 2010 World Cup qualification match between Sweden, the 2011 matches between Iceland and Denmark for the Euro 2012 qualications and the 2019 match between Netherlands for the 2019 Nations League Final. In 2009, the stadium hosted a Race of Champions final, during which the grass pitch was converted into an asphalt race course.
Musical artists who performed at the ground inlcude The Rolling Stones, Coldplay and One Direction.
Muse appearances
Stadium address
Estádio do Dragão
Via Futebol Clube do Porto
Antas
4350-415 Porto, PT