Estádio José Alvalade

The previous Estádio José Alvalade opened on 10 June 1956 before a crowd of some 60,000. Both it and its successor carry the name of José Alvalade (1885–1918), the founder and first member of Sporting CP in the early twentieth century. In its later decades the old ground was known as the "Cathedral of Rock", host to some of the world's biggest music stars on the Portuguese leg of their stadium tours; from the late 1980s and through the 1990s Alvalade was where the big concerts in Portugal were staged, and before those tours came the country had not been part of the route of the big international acts. The ground served that purpose for the last time on 28 June 2003, at the Galp ao Vivo festival, months before the new stadium was inaugurated, and it was demolished the same year to make way for its replacement.

Sporting's plans to modernise the club in the late 1990s coincided with the award of UEFA Euro 2004 to Portugal, but the decision to build a new stadium had been taken before that, the club having put forward its project two years before the tournament was awarded. Construction began on 15 January 2001 on a site next to the old ground, and the club's statutes required that the new stadium also be called the Estádio José Alvalade. It was the seventh ground in the club's history.

The work was estimated at about €106 million on 27 April 2000 and finished at €184 million, roughly €80 million above the projection and an overrun of about 75 per cent; €17,907,915 of it came from the Portuguese state. The stadium had originally been designed for 42,000 spectators, a figure revised upwards for Euro 2004, and the completed ground had 50,095 seats, all covered, and 1,315 underground parking spaces, 30 of them for disabled spectators. Tomás Taveira designed it as the centre of a complex called Alvalade XXI, which also holds the Alvaláxia shopping centre with a 12-screen cinema, a health club, the club's museum, a sports pavilion, a clinic and an office building housing the club's headquarters. The bowl itself was acoustically engineered as a venue for major concerts.

The new stadium was officially opened on 6 August 2003, when Sporting beat Manchester United 3–1 in a friendly watched by 49,992. Luís Filipe scored the first goal at the new Estádio José Alvalade. Playing alongside him was Cristiano Ronaldo, then aged 18, who made his final appearance for the club that day; it was at this match that Manchester United's wish to sign him became plain.

The ground staged five matches of Euro 2004: three in the group stage, a quarter-final, and the semi-final in which Portugal beat the Netherlands 2–1. UEFA classified it at first as a four-star stadium, and the fifth star that followed is dated two ways, to May 2005 in some accounts and to the Portugal–Netherlands semi-final in others; it is said to have been the first ground in Portugal to receive the distinction. In May 2005 it also held the UEFA Cup final, in which CSKA Moscow beat Sporting 3–1.

Between the opening in 2003 and July 2008, 3,254,539 spectators watched 117 official matches at Alvalade XXI. The largest crowd the ground held before its modernisation was 50,046, for a 1–2 defeat by Real Madrid on 22 November 2016, and in the 2019–20 season it staged Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals.

The new ground did stage renowned artists in its first years, though only sporadically, and in 2009 Sporting's board ended its use as a music venue because of the damage concerts did to the pitch and the effect that had on players' performance; AC/DC were the last act to play there before that decision. The bright yellow roof support towers and access stairways were repainted green in 2011, the multicoloured tiles on the exterior were taken off, and in 2021 the club announced that the mosaic of mixed-colour seats would be turned dark green, work finished in 2022.

Minor renovations had been running since 2021, but the most anticipated of them, the removal of the moat, was finished in time for the start of the 2025–26 season and allowed 2,000 more seats. The original video screens were taken out, to be replaced by LED panels on the balconies dividing the stadium's rings, freeing further seats, and exclusive-access lounges with a bar and dining were added. Capacity rose to 52,707. On 24 May 2025 the ground held the UEFA Women's Champions League final.

New records followed at once: 50,946 for a 1–2 defeat by FC Porto on 30 August 2025, then 51,428 for a 2–1 win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on 20 January 2026, and 51,470 for a 1–2 defeat by Benfica on 19 April 2026, the highest for a Primeira Liga match at the ground. In July 2026, after seventeen years without music, Sporting announced Alvalade's return to the concert circuit with a performance by the luso-Mozambican rapper Plutónio set for the following June. The stadium belongs to Sporting CP, is rated in UEFA's category 4 under the present regulations, and is one of the possible venues for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Portugal will co-host with Morocco and Spain.