FC Barcelona are appearing in Georgia for the first time ever as they compete for the European Super Cup against Sevilla. The venue will be the Boris Paichadze in capital city Tbilisi, the home of the biggest club of the country, Dynamo Tbilisi, as well as the Georgian national football and rugby teams.
It was inaugurated in 1936 with an original capacity of 23,000 and called the Dynamo Stadium, although it was later renamed after USSR’s chief of security, Lavrentiy Beria. However, very little of the original structure now remains, especially after the arena was almost completely rebuilt in 1976 and renamed the Lenin Dynamo Stadium. When Georgia gained its independence following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the stadium was renamed the Boris Paichadze after the great Dynamo Tbilisi striker of the 1940s.
The record attendance was for the visit of Liverpool on 3 October 1979, when 110,000 people crammed into the ground to watch Dynamo beat Liverpool 3-0 to qualify for the quarter finals of the European Cup. In 2006 the stadium was completely refurbished and is now an ultra-modern all-seater venue, which has meant a considerable reduction in its capacity to the present day 54,000.
