Moscow as a major European capital can boast of having one of the best stadiums in the Old Continent and around the world: Luzhniki Sports. Build in 1956 and called Central Lenin Stadium (It has a giant statue in his honor outside) in its beginnings, This stadium can boast of being home to two of the biggest teams in the city, Torpedo and Spartak – CSKA also played some big games- , as well as the selection of Russian football.
opened only 90 days after starting construction work (engineers and architects came from throughout the USSR as it came to a national work), which he hosted the first match was a friendly between the USSR and China as a 31 July 1956 which he ended with Soviet victory 1-0.
Riverfront Moscova, its initial capacity was 102.000 spectators, yet today they have been reduced to 78.000. As big stage, There have been many competitions and events hosted. Especially, one stands above all, Olympics 1980, hence precisely its running track. An Olympics that saw Czechoslovakia crowned gold medal ahead of the former East Germany.
Billed as five star stadium 1999 ( all seats are covered to avoid the rigors of cold), obviously the Luzhniki has also hosted European finals. Without going any further the final of the UEFA Cup 98-99 which it marked the third major European title of legendary Parma Veron, Crespo, Buffon, Thuran or Cannavaro against Olympique Marseille. As well as the final of the Champions 2007-08 who led Chelsea and Manchester United and ended with victory “red devils”, in a match that will be remembered by the John Terry inopportune slip.
The most nostalgic also remember that the stadium hosted the final of the World Under-20 faced the Brazil Taffarel, Dida or Jerson with Spain Unzué, Rafa Paz, Marcelino, Fernando or Goikoetxea, and he ended with victory canarinho.
Unfortunately, and like many of the great European coliseums, the black Luhnikí also has a story to tell, the happened one 20 October 1982, in a match of UEFA Cup disputing the FC Spartak Moscow and Haarlem Dutch, where there was a stampede motivated by the traffic jam that formed hundreds of people who wanted to return to the stadium to achieve local team its second goal, encountering so many hundreds of fans who wanted to leave the stadium and ended with 66 officers dead and 61 injured, most of them teenagers. An event that resembles the input field with a plaque that pays tribute to the dead.
Scene of major international concerts (Michael Jackson sang, Madonna o los Rolling Stone), One of the peculiarities of the stadium is its FieldTurf artificial turf, which makes it one of the few major stadiums in the world to use this type of synthetic grass that tracks quarreling meetings during the harsh winter Moscow.
Host the World Athletics 2013, the great event, however, will come in 2018 when hostel for the first time a World Cup, where in addition to hosting the final, Fortune will open the tournament opener l. For it, will increase its capacity to 88.000 people and suppress the running track. A new look that contrasted with images that for so long made him famous: that of those European games played in extreme cold and snow. Luzhniki stadium, the crown jewel of Russian football.
