Estádio Municipal Nhozinho Santos

The nickname says more about São Luís than any record book does: locals call the ground Gigante da Vila Passos, after the neighbourhood that grew up around it, and the name has stuck longer than any official title ever could. It carries the name of Joaquim Moreira Alvis dos Santos, known as Nhozinho, remembered in Maranhão as the man who brought football to the state in the first place — so the stadium is less a venue named after an event than one named after a person credited with starting the whole thing.

The opening match, on 1 October 1950, set a tone the ground has kept ever since: Sampaio Corrêa beat Paysandu 2–1, and the home side has treated Vila Passos as its own patch since day one. There is nothing borrowed about the pitch either — natural grass, laid out to full regulation size, on a ground built for football and nothing else.

Set back on Rua 21 de Abril in the Canto da Fabril district, it has never needed a second name or a corporate rebrand; what it was called at the start is what it is called now.