Estádio Beira-Rio, Football stadium in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Estádio Beira-Rio is a football stadium on the Guaíba waterfront in Porto Alegre, home of Sport Club Internacional. Its white outer facade is made of tall, repeating curved vertical ribs that widen toward the top, with green panels visible between them. The building encloses a deep open bowl: a continuous lower ring of red seating surrounds the flat green field, and above the red seats runs a white upper rim with a row of small repeating roof supports.
Construction began in the late 1950s on landfill ground but was interrupted by financial difficulties until fan fundraising enabled completion in 1969. Internacional defeated Benfica in front of roughly 100,000 people at the opening, and decades later the venue underwent major renovations for the 2014 World Cup.
The stadium's official name honours José Pinheiro Borda, the Portuguese immigrant who led the works committee and died in April 1965, months before completion. Fans donated bricks, cement and iron after the 1967 Brick Campaign, and some, including later idol Falcão, carried materials to the site themselves. The nickname Gigante da Beira-Rio refers to the Guaíba lakeshore where the ground stands.
The stadium sits on landfill beside the Guaíba, and its 26 sectors are joined by five gaps, with the lower tier at 5.50 m and the upper at 10.40 m. Access is via the waterfront; the site has 5,500 parking spaces and 81 toilets. The old standing "coreia" pit below the lower tier was closed in 2004 for safety reasons.
Engineer José Pinheiro Borda passed away during the construction phase, and the venue is unofficially named in his honor. During the 2014 World Cup, five matches took place here, including a round of sixteen game between France and Nigeria.
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