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Ataturk Olympic Stadium (Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadium) is located in İkitelli, an outskirt of Istanbul, and is the highest-capacity stadium of Turkey. Construction started in 1999 and finished by 2002. It was built for Turkey's Olympic Games bid and cost about 130 million New Turkish Lira (100 million USD).

With its 75,145 people capacity and Olympic size, it was granted the "5-star sport complex" title by UEFA in 2004, enabling it to host finals of UEFA events. The stadium is also certified by IAAA and IOC for athletic competitions. Galatasaray SK played its home games at Ataturk Olimpic Stadium during the 2003-2004 season, due to the bad condition of their own venue, Ali Sami Yen Stadium, and this was criticized by other teams. Galatasaray eventually returned to Ali Sami Yen for the 2004-2005 season, although the renovation of its ground into a modern facility is still in progress. Sivasspor also played its home games at Ataturk Olympic Stadium due to the bad conditions at their original hometown stadium.

The 2005 UEFA Champions League fianl between A.C. Milan and Liverpool F.C. was played on May 25, 2005 at Ataturk Olimpic Stadium. In the match, Liverpool were trailing 3-0 at half time but made one of the most dramatic come backs in the tournament's history, scoring 3 goals in just 6 minutes to bring the game to 3-3 by the end of normal time. No more goals were scored in extra time, bringing the game to penalties. Liverpool went on to win the shoot-out 3-2.

External links

• Ataturk Olimpiyat Stadi