Estádio Municipal de Portimão – stadium description

Located on the southern coast of Portugal, this stadium lies almost exactly at the heart of Portimão, just a minute walk from the old town. It was opened back in 1937 and until 2007 was almost fully enclosed, with stands encompassing the field strictly from all sides except the north-western corner. Here a diagonal street made construction unfeasible.

In this form the building remained until early 21st century, when local team Portominense managed to climb back to the higher leagues. Without funding for redevelopment, Portominense transferred the stadium to local authorities and the municipality carried out a series of improvements in the 2007-2010 period.

The west side had its roof demolished and new private boxes added on top, with a much smaller new cover topping the structure. South-east corner was demolished to make way for turnstiles, while the entire north terrace disappeared to be replaced with temporary tubular stands for traveling fans. All these changes, including conversion to all-seater, brought capacity down significantly, but the stadium is still yet to have its sell-out with over 6,000 people inside.