Stadion Maksimir (Municipality of Zagreb)

 football / soccer stadium, football premier league

Maksimir Stadium (Croatian: Stadion Maksimir) is a stadium in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. It takes its name from the neighbourhood of Maksimir. It is primarily the home of Dinamo Zagreb, the top football team in the country. It is also home to Dinamo Zagreb's farm team NK Lokomotiva. First opened in 1912, it has undergone many facelifts, and its current layout dates from a 1997 rebuilding. Many of the Croatian national football team's games are played at Maksimir, which competes with Poljud stadium for the biggest matches. The stadium also sometimes hosts rock concerts.

History

The stadium was first opened May 5, 1912.

When the UEFA Euro 1976 final tournament was held in SFR Yugoslavia, Maksimir hosted the Netherlands v. Czechoslovakia semi-final match and the Netherlands v. Yugoslavia third place match.

Maksimir was the central venue for the 1987 Summer Universiade hosted by the city of Zagreb.

In 1990, several events happened at Maksimir:

Dinamo Zagreb–Red Star Belgrade riot - An infamous riot involving Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade supporters which happened on 13 May 1990.
Yugoslavia v Netherlands (1990) - Last Yugoslavia match hosted at Maksimir held on 3 June 1990.
Croatia v United States (1990) - The first Croatia match in the modern era, held on 17 October 1990 at Maksimir.

In 1998, plans were made for a massive renovation process, and the first phase started the same year, when the old northern stand was demolished and a new one arisen within a year. This renovation increased Maksimir's seating capacity to 38,079.

After 1992, for 16 years the Croatian football team had a proud unbeaten record at this stadium in any competitive match, however on 10 September 2008 (two years after suffering a 2-0 defeat at the same venue) England became the first team to beat Croatia in Zagreb, winning 4-1, ending a thirty match undefeated streak.

In the summer of 2011, a little, but much needed "facelifting" was made on the stadium. All seats were replaced, a new drainage system, under-soil heating and automatic watering were installed along with a new turf, the athletic track was covered with blue artificial grass and all brick surfaces were covered in blue cloth.

Concerts

The stadium has also been used as the venue for some big concerts, including U2 (9-10 August 2009 "360 Tour"), David Bowie (1990, "Sound+Vision Tour"), Bijelo Dugme (22 June 2005, "Reunion Tour"), Marko Perković Thompson and Bon Jovi (8 June 2011 "World Tour"). Madonna was scheduled to perform at the stadium on June 11, 2012 as part of her MDNA Tour, but the concert was cancelled due to logistic reasons.

Renovation plans

According to the 1998 plans, renovation was to include lowering the lawn and making the “ring” round the pitch in the place of running track and thus gain 16,000 new seats with the annex to he south stand with the final addition of a modern roof structure. Maksimir was to have 60,000 comfortable sitting places and was to be an exclusively football stadium like many others in Europe. It has additionally been planned to build: new premises for Club’s Management, Elegant “Blue Lounge”, Big “Trophy room”, football school premises, changing room, coach staff room, sports hall with gym, out patient clinic, restaurant, luxury hotel (“A” category) with 46 beds for visiting teams special importance will be given to the building which will connect west stand to the north stand. By this, all the conditions for hosting and organizing big European matches would be fulfilled, including UEFA offices, press club, press center, V.I.P. hospitality, etc. With that, the venue was to be one of the best equipped stadiums in Europe[4]

However, in the beginning of the 2000's, the renovations were suspended. As of December 2007, the public was awaiting the presentation of new stadium, and in 2008 city government presented two potential stadiums, new Maksimir and Vulkan (Volcano) which is supposed to be built on the another location (Kajzerica) in Zagreb and old Maksimir should then be knocked down, the citizens were to choose which one they want on the referendum predicted to take place somewhere in the near future. However, the city government never made any progress with referendum or these plans and the stadium remains to be a problem city for a decade now.