Bangabandhu National Stadium

The National Stadium in Dhaka sits in the Motijheel district. What defines the ground is that it is the only one in town with a running track hugging the pitch, a legacy of its 1954 opening as a multi-purpose arena before football took centre stage. The concrete tiers are old, but the renovation that finished in 2023 gave the place a new skin, stripping back the open terraces to replace them with individual seats and a modern roof that shelters the stands without closing them off.

The pitch itself is a hybrid surface, natural grass reinforced with fibres to hold up under the heavy use of the Bangladesh national football team and the city’s big clubs, Mohammedan Sporting Club and Abahani Limited Dhaka. The stand facing the city has a glass-fronted box that sits high above the rest, a blunt red structure that breaks the grey of the concrete. Behind the north goal, a large portrait looks down on the pitch, a reminder of the building’s long history of political change, from Dacca Stadium to Bangabandhu National Stadium and back again.

It was here that the country staged the opening match of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, though the cricket has since moved on. The ground remains the stage for the biggest domestic fixtures, where the SAFF Gold Cup final once drew a crowd that stood in the aisles, a memory that sits under the new seats. The floodlight tower on the far side is a steel lattice, old and industrial, cutting into the sky. The stadium does not look like a new build; it looks like a place that has lived through the city’s shifts, kept its track, and slowly been brought up to date.