First match played at new football stadium under construction in Kazan 09.08.2010
This weekend the first football match was played at the construction site of the new 45,000-seat stadium in Kazan
The teams of student building groups of Kazan fought for the stadium’s first trophy to the accompaniment of working tractors and cranes.
«The idea of the tournament came from the students,» director of the Kazan centre of building groups Damir Kuzyaev said. «Thus the boys found an unusual way to rest from hard work in heat wave and celebrate Builder’s Day.»
Despite the common practice the teams were not divided along the universities the young builders study in – the tournament saw the encounter of the building groups consolidated by construction process.
Common workers as well as children from a local residential area gathered to support the teams.
In spite of the fact that the teams were composed of semiprofessional football players all the games were approximately close. Attitude to win a coveted trophy drove the teams forward regardless of heat and weariness.
The entrants of the exceptional football tournament were awarded with cakes and cooled water-melons. The winner got the cup filled to the brim with champagne.
As the students explained, apart from everything else the mini tournament was aimed at charging the site of the new Kazan stadium with a pure energy of youth, fair play and competition.
Nearly 800 students from almost all the Kazan universities and institutes work at the construction site of the 45,000-seat stadium included in Russia’s 2018 FIFA World Cup Bid Book.
