Maracanã Stadium

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Built for the 1950 World Cup, Brazil's temple of football was rebuilt for the 2014 World Cup final. A white PTFE membrane roof on a spoked-wheel cable structure now covers the stands above the original concrete facade.

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At a glance

Country: Brazil
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Built: 1950
Height: 32 m

Quick answers

Where is Maracanã Stadium?

Maracanã Stadium is in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

When was Maracanã Stadium built?

Maracanã Stadium was built in 1950.

How tall is Maracanã Stadium?

Maracanã Stadium is about 32 m tall.

The Maracanã is a huge football stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Its official name is Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho. It opened in 1950 to host the FIFA World Cup, and it is where Uruguay beat Brazil 2–1 in the deciding match on 16 July 1950, in front of a record crowd of 173,850 people that still stands today.

The stadium has had crowds of 150,000 or more on 26 occasions and crowds of over 100,000 as many as 284 times. After being rebuilt for the 2014 World Cup, it hosted the final of that tournament and later the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics. Next to it stands a smaller arena, the Maracanãzinho, used mostly for volleyball.

A stadium for a World Cup

After winning the right to host the 1950 World Cup, Brazil decided to build a new stadium. Some politicians criticised the cost and the location, but the journalist Mário Filho supported it, and a design competition was opened in 1947. The first cornerstone was laid on 2 August 1948, which left less than two years to finish.

The work fell behind, so FIFA sent an Italian football official, Ottorino Barassi, to help. About 1,500 workers built the stadium, with 2,000 more in the final months. It was used in 1950 but only fully finished in 1965.

Where the name comes from

The stadium was named in 1966 after Mário Filho, a sports journalist who had died shortly before. Its popular name comes from the Maracanã River, which flows through Rio's North Zone to Guanabara Bay. The word is from the Tupi language and refers to a kind of parrot that lived in the region.

The Red Star stadium in Belgrade is popularly called Marakana in honour of it.

The stadium today

As standing areas were replaced by seats, the capacity dropped to 73,139, still the largest stadium in Brazil and the third largest in South America. Flamengo and Fluminense, two Rio clubs, manage it, and Botafogo and Vasco da Gama also play there. It has hosted the 2007 Pan American Games, the 2014 World Cup final and the Copa América finals in 2019 and 2021.