Municipal Stadium of Braga

The Municipal Stadium of Braga (Portuguese: Estadio Municipal de Braga) is an all-seater football stadium located in Braga, Portugal, and the current home of Sporting Clube de Braga. It has a capacity of 30,286 spectators, making it the seventh largest football stadium in Portugal. The Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning stadium was designed by Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura.

Also known as A Pedreira (The Quarry), for being carved into the side of a mountain, the stadium was built in 2003 as a venue for the UEFA Euro 2004.

History

The project to build a stadium was developed in 2000 by architect Eduardo Souto Moura. On 5 June, the program to build the new municipal stadium for the European championships in 2004 began, promoted by the municipal council of Braga. Between 2002 and 2003, the municipal stadium was built. The enormous rock moving process contributed heavily to the final €83.1 million cost, the fourth most expensive of the ten new stadia built for Euro 2004, after Estadio da Luz (capacity: 64,642) and Estadio Jose Alvalade (capacity: 50,095), both in Lisbon, and Estadio do Dragao (capacity: 50,033) in Porto. A football game between Sporting Braga and Celta Vigo inaugurated the opening of the stadium on 30 December 2003.

The stadium became a UEFA-approved site to host the UEFA Europa League final, as well as participation in the elite competition for Europe's top clubs, the UEFA Champions League. During the UEFA European Championship in 2004, it was the site of various matches including: the 13th game, between Group C teams Bulgaria and Denmark (18 June 2004) and the 23rd match between Group D teams Netherlands and Latvia (22 June 2004). This match marked the stadium's last event during the UEFA championship in 2004, even as in October of the same year, the public work along the Avenida do Estadio was concluded.

On 27 January 2005, a dispatch was opened by the president of the IPPAR to classify the stadium as a national patrimony. In the same year, E

This page also has a version in other languages :  Муниципальный стадион Браги (russian)