It might be the world’s most illustrious football stadium, the home of football, name it. The magical Wembley Stadium turns a hundred years old in 2023. The national ground in the Northwest of London has almost always held the FA Cup final. This year, we will see another one when the venue will host a Manchester Derby between United and City.

It is the largest stadium in Spain that no one knows, the Estadio de la Cartuja in Seville. It was supposed to host the Olympic Games. But they were never held in the Andalusian city. The stadium was offered to Sevilla and Real Betis, but they quickly declined. To give it some purpose, the ground was turned into the arena of Spain’s national football team. They also decided to use it for the domestic cup finals, which is a shame because it is tough to think of a more boring stadium.

The French Cup finals were always hosted in Paris Saint-Germain’s Parc des Princes. But this changed when the Stade de France opened in 1998. Nowadays, the cup finals are being played in front of 80,000 fans in a stadium which has organised three UEFA Champions League finals, one FIFA World Cup final, and one UEFA Euro final in just 25 years.

At the beginning of the century, many new stadiums were being built in Portugal due to the Euros of 2004. All big clubs got a brand-new stadium which meets all standards to host European finals. One stadium, however, was left untouched and still hosts the cup final: The Estadio Nacional in Oeiras, just west of Lisbon.

The Koning Boudewijnstadion in Brussels is not very popular among football fans. The stands are far from the pitch, and the acoustics are terrible. At the same time, however, a trip to ‘de Heizel’, the city’s neighbourhood which has hosted the cup final for many years, has a mythical status. And we must admit: It can be atmospheric if two beautiful football clubs play each other.

The Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna was the venue of the Austrian Cup final for many years, but there often was a lack of atmosphere because they could not even fill half the stadium. In 2014, they moved the final to the Wörthersee Stadion in Klagenfurt, built for the Euros of 2008. The smaller ground has increased the occupancy rate and has made the final more popular.

For decades, the Swiss Cup final was being played in Bern, but around the turn of the century, the Swiss FA decided to move it around. For a couple of years, we saw cup finals in Basel. Occasionally, they would also host them in Zürich or Geneva. In 2018, the final returned to the home it belongs to: Young Boy’s Stadion Wankdorf in Bern.