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Estádio José Alvalade
	UEFA Elite Stadium
Full name	Estádio José Alvalade
Location	Lisbon, Portugal
Built	2003
Opened	6 August 2003
Owner	Sporting Clube de Portugal
Surface	Grass
Construction cost	€105 million
Architect	Tomás Taveira
Capacity	50,076
Field dimensions	105 x 68 m
Tenants
	Sporting Clube de Portugal

Inside the stadium

Estádio José Alvalade is a football stadium in Lisbon, Portugal, home of Sporting Clube de Portugal, one of the country's biggest clubs. It is the center of a complex called Alvalade XXI (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), designed by Portuguese architect Tomás Taveira. It was classified by UEFA as a 5-star stadium, enabling it to host finals of major UEFA events. This stadium – originally projected to hold only 40,000 spectators at any given time – has a capacity of 50,076 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. Its official opening was on 6 August 2003 when Sporting played and beat Manchester United 3–1. It also hosted the 2005 UEFA Cup final between Sporting and CSKA Moscow, which CSKA Moscow won 3–1. On the exterior, the stadium features multi-colored tiles. Seats are arranged in a seemingly random color mix to give an illusion that the stadium is always at capacity.

The stadium hosted five matches of the UEFA Euro 2004, one of them being the semi-final between Portugal and the Netherlands, which Portugal won 2–1. This match won the title of Best Organized in the whole competition.

The complex called Alvalade XXI costed a total of €154 million, with the stadium accounting with almost €105 million.

[edit] Seating distribution

Public Seats (Lower Tier) – 24,242
Public Seats (Upper Tier) – 21,970
Box Seats – 1,512
VIP and Business Seats – 1,968
Honour Seats – 130
Disabled Seats – 50
Press Seats – 204

[edit] Transport

Next to the Stadium, there is the Campo Grande Station (green and yellow line), a major interface in Lisbon Metro, and a bus terminal served by several companies. There are some car parks around the stadium. Segunda Circular, one of the busiest freeways in Lisbon, runs close by and the stadium can be reached via the exit Estádio de Alvalade

[edit] External references

http://www.stadiumguide.com/josedealvaladenew.htm

Preceded by Ullevi Gothenburg	UEFA Cup Final Venue 2005	Succeeded by Philips Stadion Eindhoven

Coordinates: 38°45′40.30″N 9°9′38.82″W / 38.761194°N 9.1607833°W / 38.761194; -9.1607833

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