Cardiff City is one of the two football clubs in Wales that play in the Premier League. The arena has been home to the Cardiff Blues Rugby Club for three years since its opening.
Details
The construction of the stadium lasted for two years and ended in the spring of 2009. Two teams began to share the arena at once. The first was Cardiff City Football Club, which moved from the Ninian Park stadium, which has been home to the capital club for 99 years. The second owners of the stadium are the Cardiff Blues rugby club.
The cost of building the arena was about 50 million pounds. Arup was the architect. Capacity - 25 thousand seats. The Cardiff City stadium is the second arena in the country in terms of the number of seats, second only to the Millennium, which has a capacity of 74.5 thousand spectators. In the summer, Cardiff City Stadium was renovated, after which it began to accommodate up to 33.5 thousand fans.
First games
In mid-July 2009, Cardiff and Celtic played a friendlyarena match. The official debut of the Cardiff City stadium took place in August 2009, when Scunthorpe United came to visit the hosts. The match ended in a crushing victory for the Welsh with a score of 4-0.
In November of the same year, the Wales national team visited the stadium for the first time, playing a friendly match against Scotland. The game ended with a 3-0 victory for the Welsh. Almost a year later, Wales played their first official game at Cardiff City. It was a match in the framework of the selection for the Euro-2012. The British team was the rival of Bulgaria.
Famous Matches
One of the first big clubs to visit the Welsh club's new arena was Manchester City. It was a game in the 2nd round of the Premier League. The match ended with a sensational 3-2 victory for Cardiff City. At the beginning of the second half, the "citizens" took the lead, but a few minutes later the Welsh equalized, and at the end of the half Campbell's double gave the team a big advantage. Negredo set the final score in stoppage time.
Manchester United came to Wales in the 12th round. The match ended in a draw. In the 13th round, Cardiff City's rival was London's Arsenal. This time, the Welsh players failed to surprise the grandee. Ramsey's brace and Flamini's goal gave the Gunners a landslide victory.
Liverpool visited Cardiff City in March. The match was held as part of the 31st round of the Premier League. The Merseysiders were one of the best teams in the championship and contenders for the title. Game debut The match opened the scoring. A few minutes later Saures restored the status quo. In the middle of the first half, Campbell's goal once again put the Welsh ahead, but before the break, Skrtel again equalized the score. Liverpool won the second half 4-1 and won the match 6-3.
In the last round of the 2013/14 season, Chelsea came to visit Cardiff City, having lost their chances for the championship a few matches before the end of the English championship. The London Grand became the last great club to visit the Welsh stadium. The game ended with the victory of Jose Mourinho's wards 2-1. At the end of the season, Cardiff City, whose head coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed during the championship, was relegated to the Championship and has never been promoted to the English Premier League in 3 seasons.
UEFA Super Cup
After finishing 20th in the Premier League in 2013/14, Cardiff were relegated to the second division of English football. Since then, no world-famous teams have come to the arena of the club. That should have changed after Cardiff City was chosen to host the 2014 UEFA Super Cup match between Real Madrid and Sevilla.
The game was attended by 30,854 spectators, which is still the arena's record. The arbitrator was English judge Mark Clattenburg. Real Madrid won 2-0 thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo's brace.
