Saint Etienne

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Address: Stade Geoffroy-Guichard saint Étienne, 14 Rue Paul et Pierre Guichard, 42000 Saint-Étienne, France

Nickname: Les Verts, Sainté

​Since gaining professional status in 1933, Saint Etienne have played all their home games in the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, also known as the Chaudron. The arena was built in 1931 by the entrepreneur Guichard, father of Pierre the Saint Etienne president as he wanted to provide his son’s club with a real sporting venue. Originally the idea was to build a multi-sports arena, but by 1957 the athletics track had been removed. The single grandstand had a capacity of 1,000 but two earth mounds behind the goals served as additional capacity so that up to 10,000 supporters could watch the games.

The stadium underwent renovations over time particularly prior to international football events. By the time of the European Championship in 1984 it had reached its maximum capacity of 59,800. This was later reduced to 35,600 for the World Cup in 1998 and increased to 41,900 for the European Championship in 2016. 

The Guichard family sold the stadium to a development company in 1957, which later sold it to the local authority in 1965. The stadium was subsequently leased to the club for 30 years for the symbolic sum of 1 franc per year. Since 2001 Stade Geoffroy-Guichard has been managed by Saint-Etienne-Métropole, while still belonging to the city.

​Saint Etienne are the most successful club in French history having won 10 Ligue 1 titles and the Coupe de France 6 times. They finished second 3 times in each competition in the period between 1957 and 1981. The club have also made a name for themselves at European level losing the Champions League final in 1976. Perhaps the writing was on the wall as in the previous campaign they managed to reach the semi finals. Financial woes saw the glory days come to an end and subsequently led to a departure of all their star players and relegation to the second tier in 1984. 

Following that Saint Etienne failed to make it back to the very top. They became known as a yoyo team floating between the first and the second divisions for some time. It was only in 2007-2008 that they managed to finish 5th, thus qualifying for Europe for the first time in 26 years. 

Since 2010-2011 they have steadily re-established themselves in the top 10 of Ligue 1. In 2012-2013 they won their first Coupe de la Ligue and with it their first silverware in over 30 years.