50 year old stadium

Construction site! Sturm starts HERE in the “premier class”

Inside, the stadium in Guingamp looks like a small, fine stadium.(Bild: krone.at/Kallinger)

Storming into the Champions League! While Austria's soccer champions prepare for the start in the top flight on Thursday (21) after an arduous journey to France, the "Krone" got a picture of the scene where Christian Ilzer's men are chasing their first points. Conclusion: They have played in more beautiful stadiums.

Welcome to Guingamp. In the small French town with a population of just 7,000, Sturm will take their first step on Europe's highest stage, the Champions League, on Thursday (kick-off at 9pm). The stadium of the actual second division team (!) is the home of Stade Brest in the top flight. As a journalist from Graz, who often has to experience the discussions about the suitability of a stadium first-hand, one is left somewhat perplexed by the "Champions League arena" of the third-placed team in the last Ligue 1.

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The only thing "royal" here is the newly laid pitch. The rest of the Stade de Roudourou looks like a building site (see pictures above). The press conference room and media workstation are all provisionally set up in containers on the forecourt. The accreditation office? A red-painted hut. A rickety construction site leads from the press area to the inside of the stadium. Internet? Not available for the time being. Looking out onto the pitch, you can see two employees sticking a large storm sticker on one of the replacement benches.

Press conference in the container.(Bild: krone.at/Kallinger)

In short: you don't feel like you're in the Champions League, at most in the Conference League. The Stade Brest press officer tries to explain: "Guingamp have played in the Europa League twice in the last ten years. We are still making the final adjustments," but even the club representative in the 50-year-old stadium can be heard hoping that UEFA will continue to turn a blind eye.

Why Guingamp and not Graz?
But one wonders why Sturm did not receive permission for the Champions League in Graz and had to move to the arena in Klagenfurt - and why Stade Brest was given a sticker on a building site. The hope remains that there will be some kind of Champions League flair on Thursday in front of almost 16,000 fans and during the anthem.