The Mineirao Stadium which has hosted 6 FIFA World Football Cup games is a home ground of the Cruzeiro team. The full name of the stadium is Estadio Governador Magalhaes Pinto. It is situated in the Belo Horizonte city of Minas Gerais province in Brazil. Minas Arena is the owner of the stadium and it can accommodate over 58000 fans. The stadium has 105 x 68 meter field size and the surface is entirely made out of grass.
The ground was first broke out in the year 1959 and it was inaugurated on 5th September, 1965. Mineirao Stadium had to gone through a renovation process to meet the FIFA World Cup standards in 2012-2013. Apart from FIFA World Cup 2014 the stadium has also hosted games of 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and is going to host some of the football games to be played during the Rio Olympics in 2016.
The moments around sporting events at this place was actually stared in the early 1940s as many professional athletes and even office going and working people used to come here to play some football. Later the place became so popular that a demand to have a stadium was increased. First another stadium was built in the Belo Horizonte and later in the 1959 the ground was first broken to build the Mineirao stadium.
Despite the capacity of 58000 plus fans the stadium has seen the largest attendance in 1997 when Cruzeiro and Villa Nova played against each other in the final match of the state league. At that time though the capacity was around 72,000 but total 132, 834 people attended this match. The main reason for this was that women and children were allowed a free entry. For safety reasons the capacity was then reduced to 58000 for the FIFA World Cup 2014. This stadium has also witnessed one of the heaviest defeats by the home team Brazil which came in the 2014 FIFA World Cup Semi Finals in which the eventual champions Germany crushed Brazil by 7 goals to 1.
Major International Matches Hosted by Mineirao Stadium
- FIFA Confederations Cup
- Tahiti Vs Nigeria on 17th June 2013
- Japan Vs Mexico on 22nd June 2013
- Brazil Vs Uruguay on 26th June 2013
- FIFA World Cup 2014
- Columbia Vs Greece on 14th June
- Belgium Vs Algeria on 17th June
- Argentina Vs Iran on 21st June
- Costa Rica Vs England 24th June
- Brazil Vs Chile (Round of 16) on 28th June
- Brazil Vs Germany (Semi Final) on 8th July
