Floodlight Friday: Estádio José Alvalade

This Portugese palace is one-of-a-kind and why you need to get a hop in!

Ground: Estádio José Alvalade

Capacity: 50,095

Opened: 6 August, 2003

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Home of: Sporting Clube de Portugal (Sporting CP)

It felt fitting as we approach the stadium’s 20th birthday to give light to a club and country often forgotten about in the European football landscape. Home to Sporting CP a European pereniall contender in Europa League. The stadium is the center of a complex called Alvalade XXI, designed by Portuguese architect Gil Dias, which includes a mall called Alvaláxia with a 12-screen movie theater, a health club, the club's museum, a sports pavilion, a clinic, and an office building. The complex cost a total of €162 million, with the stadium accounting with almost €120 million. On the exterior, the stadium features multi-coloured tiles. Originally the seats were arranged in a random-looking mosaic of mixed colours, however during its second decade of use these were all gradually changed to dark green, with the roof support towers and access stairways, initially bright yellow, also repainted green.

Sitting in vibrant Lisbon, It was classified by UEFA as a 4-star stadium, enabling it to host finals of major UEFA events. The stadium – originally projected to hold only 40,000 spectators at any given time – has a capacity of 50,095 and was acoustically engineered as a venue for major concerts. The stadium has also a total of 1,315 underground parking spaces, including 30 for disabled spectators.

The new stadium official opening was on 6 August 2003 when Sporting played and beat Manchester United 3–1. The stadium hosted five matches of UEFA Euro 2004, one of them being the semi-final between Portugal and the Netherlands, which Portugal won 2–1. In May 2005, the stadium was upgraded to 5-star stadium status by UEFA, the same month it hosted the 2005 UEFA Cup Final between Sporting and CSKA Moscow, which CSKA Moscow won 3–1