Everything you need to know about the stadium where Feyenoord and AS Roma play their final | Foreign football

The Air Albania Stadium in Tirana is popularly called Arena Kombëtare and can accommodate ‘only’ 22,500 spectators. The stadium has four players. The national team of Albania plays its international matches there and the clubs Partizan Tirana, KF Tirana and Dinamo Tirana also (occasionally) play their matches there. However, there are still a number of things that make the stadium special.

Young stadium
The stadium has a modern impression and that is not surprising, because its construction was only completed in 2019. This means that less than a hundred football matches have been played in it to date. The stadium is built on the site of the former Qemal Stafa Stadium.

That stadium was always the national stadium, but in 2013 UEFA declared that the stadium no longer met the requirements, so that European matches were no longer allowed to be played. In the following years, the Albanian Football Association and the government made plans for a new stadium, but that plan only came through in 2016. On November 17, 2019, the new stadium was opened with an international match of Albania against France (0-2 loss).

Outline of Albania
The design is by the Italian architect Marco Casamonti. From the outside, the stadium mainly stands out because of its special shape. Casamonti has tried to process the outline of Albania in the roof. It should represent an octagon with concave sides and that should be reminiscent of the map of Albania.

That is not the only outward reference to Albania. The metal panels on the outside of the stadium have a curved triangular shape, stylized with some shapes based on traditional Albanian carpets.

Top five tallest buildings
What stands out most, on the other hand, is the tower attached to the stadium. With a height of 112 meters it is one of the highest towers (number four) in all of Albania. The tower houses a 5-star hotel with 80 rooms and 256 underground parking spaces. The tower has 24 floors and the rest of the stadium contains shopping facilities and a museum.

Name change due to financial damage
The stadium is usually called Arena Kombëtare by the Albanians, which means national stadium. This name was given to the stadium when the building plan was adopted. The same building plan also ensured that the stadium is now officially called Air Albania Stadium. Initially, the construction of the stadium would cost forty million euros, but due to several setbacks, those costs were considerably higher.

For example, the construction organization found out halfway through that the sewage system under the stadium was no longer adequate. Ultimately, after the opening date was postponed several times, the costs turned out to amount to 85 million euros. That is more than double what was budgeted. In order to compensate for this financial damage, a commercial name was still chosen. Air Albania has become the stadium sponsor.

Lewandowski doesn’t have a good memory
Despite the stadium’s still young history, top striker Robert Lewandowski does not have good memories of the Air Albania Stadium. In October of last year, Poland played a World Cup qualifier against Albania, but the game was stopped 15 minutes before the end. Karol Swiderski made the 0-1 just before time, after which the Poles were pelted en masse with bottles of water.

Due to the misbehavior of the supporters, the match was stopped for twenty minutes, but still played out. Afterwards, match winner Swiderski came in front of the camera, after which he was pelted again and so he rushed inside. Captain Lewandowski later admitted that he did not feel very safe in that stadium. “After the goal, full bottles flew in, which was quite dangerous.”