Estádio do Dragão

FC Porto had played at the Estádio das Antas, and the new ground was built to replace it and to give the city a venue for the UEFA Euro 2004 finals. Work began in late 2001 to a design by the Portuguese architect Manuel Salgado, and was carried out by the Portuguese contractor Somague. It cost €125 million, of which €18,076,409 came from the Portuguese state, and to help underwrite the costs each stand carried a sponsor's name: Super Bock the south, tmn the east, meo the west and Coca-Cola the north.

The stadium was finished in November 2003, several months later than intended. In February 2002 the mayor of Porto, Rui Rio, altered the distribution of the estate around the ground, objecting to a plan that set aside the area for high-end housing and shopping. Porto's chairman, Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, responded by halting all building operations, and they resumed only once a consensus had been reached.

What to call the place was argued out inside the club's administration before the opening. One option was to keep the old name, Estádio das Antas, this time as the official one, which it had never formally been at the previous ground. Others favoured naming it for one of the club's own: the former player Artur de Sousa Pinga, the manager José Maria Pedroto, or the president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa. Pinto da Costa's name drew the widest agreement and was dismissed by the president himself. The name Estádio do Dragão was announced to the public after a period of deliberation, and the reasoning given was that the dragon stood in both the club's badge and the coat of arms of the city, and that no other name carried the same “will of new conquests”.

The stadium was inaugurated on 16 November 2003 with a friendly against Barcelona, a crowd of 52,004 setting an attendance record for the ground. Porto won 2-0 through Derlei and Hugo Almeida. On the visiting side, a sixteen-year-old Lionel Messi made his debut. The turf then failed badly enough that Porto had to go back and play at the old Estádio das Antas while it was replanted, returning to the Dragão by the middle of February 2004.

At Euro 2004, the tournament the ground had been built for, the Dragão staged the opening match between the hosts, Portugal, and Greece, who went on to win the competition. It also took three group-stage fixtures, a quarter-final and a semi-final. Rated a UEFA category four stadium, it has since held a run of club and international matches, and was one of the venues for the 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals.

The 2021 UEFA Champions League final had originally been planned for the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, and was moved to Porto because of travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic; Istanbul was given the 2023 final instead. Chelsea beat Manchester City 1-0 in Porto, Kai Havertz scoring the only goal.

The ground holds 50,033 seated, which makes it the third-largest football stadium in Portugal, and it remains owned by FC Porto, in the Campanhã district of the city. The supporters are arranged as they were at the old stadium: the Super Dragões in the south stand and the Colectivo Ultras 95 in the north, with away fans put in the right-hand corner of the east stand's upper tier. It is designated as heritage without legal protection.

Income from events other than football was designed into the building from the start, covering business meetings, congresses, summits, festivals, expos and other sporting competitions. In 2009 the Race of Champions committee chose it for the South Europe Regional Final, and the grass pitch was laid over with an asphalt course for the occasion. The 2019 ESSMA Summit brought club, league and federation representatives there to discuss the direction of the football industry, and four international concert tours have used the stadium as a venue. It is among the grounds put forward for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Portugal is to co-host with Morocco and Spain.