Al-Madina Stadium

Al-Madina Stadium occupies the Sadr City district of Baghdad. The structure sits on Port Said Street.

Those lights are bright, but they do not hide the smell of wet earth when it rains, a smell that comes from the pitch itself. The surface is a hybrid of natural grass and synthetic fibres, imported from Italy, but the climate has been hard on it. When the drainage fails, the ground turns to mud, and matches are called off because the surface simply cannot hold up.

Inside, the seats are arranged in blocks of blue and white, a colour scheme that matches the flags in the stands. The capacity is 32,000, but the number feels smaller on a rainy Tuesday in January. The stadium was designed by Nurol İnşaat, a Turkish engineering firm, and it opened in 2021, though the official date was pushed back twice because of the pandemic and administrative changes. It has been called many names—Al-Sadr City, Al-Habibiya, Al-Shohada—before settling on Al-Madina, a name that belongs to the city itself.

It hosts the Iraq national team, who return here after a long absence from the capital, and local sides like Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya. The history between them adds an edge to the games played on this pitch.