Estádio Presidente Antônio Carlos, Football stadium in Lourdes district, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
The Estádio Presidente Antônio Carlos was a football stadium in the Lourdes neighborhood of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, built with concrete grandstands and wooden bleachers in a style influenced by English architecture. It served as the first permanent home ground for Atlético Mineiro and held around 5,000 spectators.
The stadium opened in 1929 and remained the home ground of Atlético Mineiro until 1950, hosting regional championships throughout those years. The structure was later demolished and replaced by a shopping center in 1994.
When the stadium opened, many local businesses shut their doors so employees could attend the first match between Atlético Mineiro and Corinthians. This gesture shows how central football was to daily life in Belo Horizonte at the time.
The site is in the Lourdes neighborhood, close to the city center, and easy to reach on foot or by public transport. Since the stadium was demolished in 1994, visitors today will only find the shopping center built in its place.
Jules Rimet, the FIFA president at the time, watched his first floodlit night match here in 1930, an experience still rare in football at that time. He saw Atlético Mineiro win by a wide margin, and the occasion left a mark on the early history of the sport in South America.
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