Portugal’s second city after Lisbon, Porto sits on the west coast of Portugal north of the capital. It is home to the country’s most successful and possibly its most powerful club – FC Porto.
Founded on 28 September 1893, Porto is one of the Três Grandes teams from Portugal. Together with Sporting CP and Benfica, and not withstanding occasional title challenges from Boavista and Sporting Braga, these three super clubs compete almost every year in the Primeira Liga for the honour of being champions. Nicknamed the Dragões after the mythical creature that sits atop the club’s crest, the Azuis e brancos play in distinctive blue and white striped home shirts.
The location for the opening game of UEFA Euro 2004, since 2003 Porto have played home matches at the Estádio do Dragão, a stadium which replaced the previous 52-year-old ground the Estádio das Antas.
The Estádio das Antas (officially the Estádio do Futebol Clube do Porto) was the third stadium of the Portuguese football side FC Porto. It was in use from 1952 to 2004 during a period in which FC Porto won the European Cup twice (1987 and 2004) and the UEFA Cup (2003).
It had replaced the earlier Campo da Constituição.
Although demolished in 2004 some parts of the das Antas stadium remain. A floodlight still stands looking down upon where a player once died on the field while slabs of rocks that were once terraces still sit amongst the rubble.
The new stadium’s name is derived from the presence of a dragon on the club’s crest, which is composed of an old stitched leather football under the city’s coat of arms.
The Estadio do Dragao stadium was inaugurated on 16 November 2003 with a friendly match against FC Barcelona.
We went to Porto and saw a fantastic city with great food and good football. You can view the FC Porto images here and some images from Boavista here.