Estádio José Américo de Almeida Filho

The Estádio José Américo de Almeida Filho is a stadium in João Pessoa.

When the stadium opened in 1975, it was a spectacle of scale, capable of holding nearly 45,000 people. That number has since shrunk to 25,770. The renovation in 2013 replaced the pitch and waterproofed the stands. You can still feel that history in the concrete, which once shed a piece of its marquee onto a spectator in 2019.

The ground has hosted the local rivalry against Campinense Clube, where the attendance record was set in 1998 with 44,268 fans filling the concrete tiers. The pitch is natural grass, maintained by a computerized system installed during the rebuild, but the atmosphere remains tied to the old concrete bowl.

Almeidão is a place that does not hide its age. It is a concrete shell that has survived a name change, a panic at its inauguration, and the slow erosion of time. It is not the most beautiful stadium in Brazil, but it is the one that has endured.