Stade Vélodrome

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The Stade Vélodrome is a 60,000 capacity stadium in Marseille, France. It is the home ground of top French football club Olympique de Marseille and was also a venue in the 1998 FIFA World Cup. It is the largest club football ground in France. The stadium is also used regularly by the French rugby union team.

The record attendance for a club game at the Stade Vélodrome was of 58 897, for a UEFA Cup semi-final game against Newcastle United FC in 2004. The stadium also featured as a Football World Cup venue when the 1938 finals were held in France. The first ever match to be played was between Marseille and Torino in 1937. There are plans to increase the capacity to 80,000 as the stadium will be used for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

The French rugby union team started an impressive run of victories at the stadium in the early 2000s. In November of 2000 they defeated the All Blacks 42 to 33, the following year defeating Australia by one point. In 2002 one match was played their again, a win over the Springboks, which was followed by a win over England in 2003. However, their run of luck was broken in 2004, when they lost 14 to 24 to Argentina.