Estadio dos Arcos

The ground Rio Ave play on today is a smaller thing than the one that opened. When Mário Soares, then President of Portugal, watched the inauguration match against Sporting CP, the terraces held somewhere between roughly 12,815 and 20,000 people. Individual seats went in during 2009 to meet safety regulations, and the number fell to about 9,000. Then, in November 2020, structural concerns forced the demolition of the eastern stand, the bancada nascente. What is left seats 5,300.

The weather took the next piece. In March 2025, Storm Martinho tore into the western stand, and the rebuilding work ran until June, finished in time for the 2025/26 season.

Its fullest weeks came in a narrow stretch. In 2014 Rio Ave beat SC Braga here in the semi-finals and went through to the final of the Taça de Portugal; the season that followed brought UEFA Europa League group matches to Vila do Conde — a 2-2 draw with FCSB, a 2-0 win over AaB. Three years later the Chinese group Fosun announced more than €10 million for the club and the ground.

The stadium, designed by Branco Ló, marked forty years in October 2024 with a veterans' match against Sporting — the same opponent as on the first day, on a ground that had lost a stand in between.