Parc des Princes or Princes’ Park is a football stadium, located in the French capital Paris. It is at a stone's throw from the popular tennis venue, Stade Roland Garros.
With the capacity of 48,527, Parc des Princes is the fifth-largest football stadium in France by capacity and is the home ground for team Paris Saint-Germain at the present.
History
Initially, venue had served as a cycle racing track and also held a number of rugby matches. It was 1903, when stadium hosted its first international football match and witnessed the victory of England over France by 0-11.
In 1970s, renovation of the stadium took place and later, on 4 June 1972, it was inaugurated by French president of the time, Georges Pompidou.
The first match in the newly inaugurated Parc des Princes was the Coupe de France final between Olympique de Marseille and SEC Bastia. With the help of the goals from Didier Couecou and Josip Skoblar, Marseille had won the match by 2-1.
Major Matches
In 1983, the quarter-final of UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was held here, between the Paris Saint-Germain and Waterschei Thor. More than 49,000 fans were present at that time, which is a record attendance till date for a football match at Parc des Princes.
Since the opening in 1972, Parc has hosted 5 European Club Football finals. In 1975, the first of these finals was played between Bayern München and Leeds United, in which Bayern München was the winner (2-0).
It was followed by the Winners’ Cup final between Anderlecht and Austria Wien in 1978, with Anderlecht winning by 4-0. In 1981, Liverpool and Real Madrid faced each other in the European Cup final, with the English club winning the title 1-0.
Recent Matches
Paris Saint-Germain achieved two biggest wins of 2017-18 Ligue-1 at Parc des Princes, both by 6-2, when it defeated Toulouse and Bordeaux on 20 August and 30 September respectively.
A second leg match of 2017–18 UEFA Champions League knockout phase will be played here between Paris SG and Ronaldo's Real Madrid on 6th March 2018.
