Mbombela Stadium

Construction was still under way when the city around it changed identity: what had been Nelspruit became Mbombela in October 2009, just days before the ground itself opened. FIFA paperwork and the international press had spent months referring to the venue by the old city name, and the habit stuck long enough that some still call it Nelspruit Stadium. Mbombela Stadium has never taken a sponsor's name either.

The build had its own scare. A storm tore a crane loose on site in January 2009, though the design went ahead unchanged and the stadium was ready on schedule. The formal send-off came the following year, a friendly between South Africa and Thailand that served as the ground's christening rather than its actual opening.

Underfoot, the pitch has never quite settled on one identity either. It started out on Desso GrassMaster, a hybrid of ryegrass reinforced with synthetic fibre, before groundstaff began switching between that and cynodon depending on the season, chasing whatever the climate and the game's requirements demanded.