Estádio José Alvalade


Estádio José Alvalade is a football stadium in Lisbon, Portugal, home of Sporting Clube de Portugal. It was built adjacent to the site of the older stadium. The stadium is named after José Alvalade, the founder and first club member of Sporting CP in the early twentieth century.

Origin

The previous José Alvalade Stadium was opened on June 10, 1956. With Portugal achieving the rights to host the UEFA Euro 2004, the Portugal stadiums needed to be improved, so the old Stadium was demolished in 2003 to make way for the new stadium.

History

The stadium is the center of a complex called Alvalade XXI, designed by Portuguese architect Tomás Taveira, 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 €121 million. On the exterior, the stadium features multi-coloured tiles. Seats are also arranged in a random-looking colour mix.
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. It also hosted the 2005 UEFA Cup Final between Sporting and CSKA Moscow, which CSKA Moscow won 3–1.
After years of coping with a poor playing surface, the Sporting board initially decided to install synthetic turf for the 2011-12 season, but this decision was later abandoned for the use of artificial lighting.

Notable matches

First match

Team #1ScoreTeam #2Date
Sporting CP3–1Manchester United06/08/2003

UEFA Euro 2004

2005 UEFA Cup Final

Other international matches

Seating distribution

The Stadium is served by the Campo Grande station of the Lisbon Metro and a bus terminal served by several companies. The Segunda Circular, a major ring road of Lisbon, runs close by and the stadium can be reached via the exit Estádio de Alvalade. There are several car parks around the stadium.
It is a relatively short distance from Lisbon's biggest stadium, the Estádio da Luz, homeground of rivals S.L. Benfica.