Nantes

The Stade de la Beaujoire - Louis Fonteneau is the home of FC Nantes, located at Route de Saint Joseph in the Beaujoire district of Nantes, Loire-Atlantique. The stadium holds 37,473 spectators and was built for the 1984 UEFA European Championship, where it hosted group stage and knockout matches. Formally named to honour Louis Fonteneau, a president of the club from 1961 to 1993 who oversaw the most successful era in Nantes history, the ground opened in 1984 and represented a major upgrade from the old Marcel-Saupin stadium. It was also used as a venue during the 1998 FIFA World Cup, hosting group stage matches.

FC Nantes are one of French football's most celebrated clubs, with eight Ligue 1 titles and a tradition of beautiful, attacking, possession-based football known as the "Jeu a la Nantaise" - a style developed under legendary coach Jose Artur and subsequently Jose-Luis Pacheco and Jean-Claude Suaudeau in the 1960s and 1970s. That era produced world-class players including Maxime Bossis, Henri Michel, Didier Sixte, and Loic Lemasson. In more recent decades, the club won back-to-back titles in 1994-95 and 1994-95 and the Coupe de France in 1999 and 2022, the latter a surprise triumph. Marc-Vivien Foe, the Cameroonian international who died while playing for Cameroon in 2003, is particularly mourned by Nantes supporters among whose ranks he was beloved.

The Stade de la Beaujoire's four-stand structure provides a comfortable matchday experience for over 37,000 supporters, and the ground is regularly well-attended for top Ligue 1 fixtures. The Virage Nord houses the most vocal Nantes ultras. The city of Nantes, France's sixth-largest city and its former Atlantic slave trade port, has a rich cultural and economic history, and FC Nantes occupies an important place in its identity. The club's famous yellow shirts and their canary mascot are recognisable symbols across French football, and the Beaujoire has been the stage for decades of their successes and challenges in the French top flight.