What are the World Cup venues?

Thirty-two teams will be playing 65 matches at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. What are the 12 stadiums where these games will be taking place?

The 2018 World Cup begins on June 14, when Russia face Saudi Arabia in the opening match. The game will take place at the Luzhniki Stadium, which is the key venue at the tournament as it will host the final on July 15. With a capacity of 81,000, the stadium in Moscow will also host a semifinal, and seven matches in total.

The first semifinal will be held at the 68,134 capacity Saint Petersburg stadium, as will everyone’s favorite pointless soccer match, the third-place playoff. Like the Luzhniki, this ground will host seven matches.

Four stadiums will be utilized for six games, and this quartet will each hold one of the quarterfinals. The grounds in question are Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Sochi. The latter of these will also host what may well be the best game of the group stage, when Portugal take on Spain on June 15.

There are two stadiums which will host five matches, and both have one of the games in the round of 16. Rostov-on-Don will stage the clash between the winners of Group G and the runners up from Group H. Brazil, the favorites to win the trophy, get their tournament underway at the same venue on June 17.

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The other five-game venue is the Otkrytiye Stadium in Moscow. Brazil will also appear here, against Serbia, and Argentina’s opening match against Iceland takes place here too.

That leaves four stadiums which will host four matches and none in the knockout stages: Kaliningrad, Saransk, Volgograd and Yekaterinburg. Of the four, it’s Kaliningrad which appears to have the best fixtures, as it hosts England vs. Belgium, which is likely to be a Group G decider, and also Spain vs. Morocco.