Parc des Princes

The Parc des Princes has stood on this ground since 1897, first as a cycling velodrome, but the arena Paris knows today dates from a full rebuild between 1967 and 1972, when architect Roger Taillibert reshaped it with the help of Iranian architect Siavash Teimouri. It insisted the name stay untouched — between 2012 and 2019 the club and the city discussed selling naming rights, Qatar National Bank among the suitors, and each time the council said no. The stadium has carried one name since the nineteenth century.

Paris Saint-Germain have played here since 1974, though the women's side trains elsewhere at Campus PSG and only returns to the Parc for its biggest fixtures. The pitch itself is a hybrid surface, natural grass reinforced with synthetic fibres, tended for years under agronomist Jonathan Calderwood.

Before PSG made it home, the ground had already written its own football history. In 1956 it staged the first European Cup final, Real Madrid beating Stade de Reims 4-3, and in 1960 it hosted the semi-finals and final of the first European Nations' Cup, where France fell to the Soviet Union. The French Cup final returned here repeatedly across the decades, and the League Cup final was played at the Parc in 1965.

The record crowd through the gates was not for football at all: 50,370 packed in for a Five Nations rugby match between France and Wales in February 1989. The largest football attendance came in March 1983, when 49,575 watched PSG face Waterschei in the Cup Winners' Cup, while the biggest Ligue 1 gate — 47,844 — came for PSG against Nantes in May 2016.