35 stadiums entered the competition, but there can only be one winner and that is Arena MRV! The striped venue in Belo Horizonte was voted for by the most people, making Brazilians the winners of the stadiums and fans competition.

Top 5 stadiums opened in 2023

12,073 of you contributed to this year's results! Arena of Atletico Mineiro with 25 515 points was slightly ahead of Germany's BBBank Wildpark, which finished in second place with more than 3000 points behind the Brazilian facility.

Further down the rankings were 2 Polish venues - ArcelorMittal Park in Sosnowiec and Orlen Stadion in Płock. Both of these stadiums belong to clubs in the second tier of competition in Poland. The top 5 closes with a Hungarian facility, Nemzeti Atlétikai Központ. You can find out the full results here, and below are the point scores of the top five stadiums.

Stadium	Points
1. Arena MRV	25,515
2. BBBank Wildpark	21,218
3. ArcelorMittal Park	14,947
4. Orlen Stadion	10,794
5. Nemzeti Atlétikai Központ	8,523

Now let’s take a closer look at the facility that from now on can boast the title of the best stadium of 2023!

Stadium designed by an Atletico fan

Inspired by club colours (alvinegro, white-black stripes), the new arena comes as the first stadium ever designed by Bernardo Farkasvölgyi, local architect who is an ardent supporter of Galo. Before designing, he visited numerous stadiums in Brazil and Europe. His praise of Allianz Arena seems quite visible when it comes to MRV Arena, though it’s still an original building.

Atlético has not played at its home ground since 1950, when the club left its Estádio Presidente Antônio Carlos in favour of playing in a new stadium built for the 1950 World Cup (Arena Independência). Later Atlético also played at Mineirão stadium, which opened in 1965. The old Estádio Presidente Antônio Carlos had remained unused since 1950, and in the 1990s a shopping centre was built in its place. It became a source of significant revenue for the club and, in due course, the sale of shares allowed the construction of Arena MRV.

Located in a country where people live and breathe football, the new stadium is impressive and surely some of the top clubs in Europe would be proud of such a facility. In your opinion, was Arena MRV deservedly voted the best stadium opened in 2023? Write in the comments below the video. Now, we have no choice but to conclude the Stadium of the Year competition, which of course will return next year. Thank you once again for your contribution!