Sports Illustrated Stadium

The ground itself stayed put. It opened in 2010 as Red Bull Arena, and the Cape May Street address in Harrison has been the fixed point through both rebrandings. Sports Illustrated Stadium is the name it carries now.

The opening night set the tone for what followed: a friendly against Santos of Brazil, decided 3-1 in the home side's favour, on a pitch meant from the start to be worked hard and kept right. The Kentucky bluegrass surface runs on a SubAir system underneath, drawing air and moisture through the roots so the grass survives a fixture list shared between two clubs rather than one.

That sharing is the arena's real distinction among American soccer grounds. It serves as home to New York Red Bulls and to Gotham FC, the women's side, a double tenancy that keeps the calendar fuller than most stadiums built for a single occupant. At 25,000 capacity, it sits smaller than the multipurpose venues that dominate American football schedules elsewhere, built instead to the scale of a ground meant only for football.