Football is one of the most popular sports in Switzerland, the home of some top-notch football clubs in Europe. The popularity of football is also evidenced in Swiss betting, where the specific sport generates the biggest share of wagers placed by users of online bookmakers and sportsbooks.
Overall football is now part of the history of the Swiss, with the country being home to some very popular football stadiums that have hosted high profile, major sporting events such as UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and of course matches of the national leagues.
Although one would argue that it is hard to find state-of-the-art Swiss stadiums, particularly because the country’s football clubs rarely make it deep into European or international competitions, the truth is that Switzerland now has a handful of stadiums to showcase to the football world. Let’s see the four most popular stadiums in the country.
St Jakob Park is probably the most popular Swiss football stadium. It is the home to the Swiss club Basel and it is located in Basel. Initially built in the 1950s the St. Jakob -Stadium, has been one of the most well-known and famous fields in the world with top-notch matches taking place in its premises. The 1954 World Cup was amongst its popular events.
In 2001 it was reopened after re-design and renovation and became officially FC Basel’s home ground. With a seating capacity of nearly 38.0000 (although in the past its capacity was stretched even up to 50.000 seats but was then reduced for safety reasons), St Jakob Park is an iconic stadium that has hosted popular football matches in its new season as well. Such matches include for example the Europa League final in 2016 between Liverpool and Sevilla.
St Jakob Park is really interesting both for its architectural design and for the sporting events that it hosts.
This is also an iconic football stadium in Switzerland, one that has a long history behind it and a rich tale to tell. It is located in Bern and it has been the home stadium of the FC Young Boys. In 2001 the old grounds were demolished, but this did not wipe out the memorable events taking place in the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final.
In 2005 the stadium was reopened with a seating capacity of 32.000 spectators, making it the second largest stadium in Switzerland - after St Jakob Park. Since then it hosted some very popular matches as it was one of the venues of the UEFA 2008 European Championship, while also the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualification took place there. From 2020 the venue has been renamed to Wankdorf Stadion to revive its old glory.
The Geneva Stadium (Stade de Geneve) was built in 2003 and it is now the official home ground of FC Servette. It has a capacity of slightly more than 30.000 seats and it is considered to be a very important field, having hosted very critical sporting events.
In 2008 it hosted three group matches of the UEFA European championship, whereas in 2017 it was the place where the popular Swiss Cup Final was held between Basel and Sion.
The Letzigrund stadium is located in Zurich and it is the official home of FC Zurich and the Grasshopper Club Zurich. It was built back in 1925 and it has a seating capacity of nearly 25.000 viewers, which makes it the fourth biggest stadium in Switzerland.
The Letzigrund stadium is also one that has hosted a lot of important sporting non-football events such as the Diamond league or the European Athletic Championships.
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