Arena Pantanal

The Arena Pantanal stands where the old Verdão once stood, on the same ground in Cidade Alta, torn down in 2010 to make way for a stadium built with a World Cup in mind. The new bowl opened on 2 April 2014, a goalless Copa do Brasil tie between Mixto and Santos taking the honour of the first match, weeks before four group-stage fixtures from the 2014 tournament arrived: Chile's 3-1 win over Australia, a 1-1 draw between Russia and South Korea, Nigeria's narrow 1-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Colombia's 4-1 win over Japan.

The record crowd came later and away from the World Cup spotlight, on 22 September 2018, when 41,311 turned out to watch Cuiabá play Operário Ferroviário. The ground has since found a second life as a concert venue, with Guns N' Roses among the acts booked to play there in 2025.

One detail sets the Arena Pantanal apart from stadiums built purely for football: a school, EE Governador José Fragelli, sits inside the structure itself, a legacy of the site's civic use that survived the rebuild.