Vasil Levski National Stadium

Sofia's national ground sits on the footprint of two earlier arenas, the Levski club stadium and the Yunak stadium, both cleared away in the late 1940s to make way for it. It opened on 5 July 1953 to a design by Tenyo Dundakov. In the mid-1960s the upper tiers went up and floodlight masts joined them.

The turn of the century brought the change that mattered most: a 2002 rebuild stripped out the standing terraces in favour of individual plastic seats to meet UEFA's requirements. A further round of work in 2015 relaid the pitch with a new irrigation system, fitted an electronic scoreboard and put a roof over the main stand.

Bulgaria have called it home since it opened, and it hosts the Bulgarian Cup final on a regular basis. Its athletics history runs deeper than most football grounds: on 31 August 1961 the Soviet jumper Valeriy Brumel cleared 2.25 metres here for a world high jump record, and the venue also staged games at the 1957 European basketball championship.

Off the pitch, the record crowd belongs not to football but to a concert: 120,000 people packed in on 24 July 1990 to see the Yugoslav singer Lepa Brena. AC/DC, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Madonna and, more recently, Ed Sheeran and Imagine Dragons have all filled it since.