How often does a footballer step onto the pitch at his home stadium compared to a fan visiting their favorite club? For season-ticket holders, it might be a close race or even tip in favor of the spectator. But for casual visitors like this writer (age 36), the picture is different: the Adolf-Jäger-Kampfbahn of Hamburg’s current Regionalliga side Altona 93 leads with 40 visits since 1998. In contrast, Manuel Neuer (40), Cristiano Ronaldo (41), and Toni Kroos (36) each have two stadiums in their careers where they have played well over 100 matches.
A database analysis based on Transfermarkt’s Groundhopping tool shows Neuer has guarded the goal at Munich’s Allianz Arena 295 times and appeared 112 times at Schalke 04’s Veltins-Arena. Five other German stadiums also feature with at least 20 visits from the former national team goalkeeper. Users can update their own Groundhopping list with all matches recorded in the TM database.
For Kroos, Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu (where he played from 2014 until his retirement in 2024) leads with 199 games, ahead of Bayern’s Allianz Arena (113). He also made 19 appearances at the Estadio Alfredo di Stéfano, where Real temporarily played during stadium renovations.
And Ronaldo? A career largely free of major injuries includes 217 games at the Bernabéu, 172 at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and around 70 each at Juventus and his current club Al-Nassr. He even played 17 times at Barcelona’s Camp Nou, where his eternal rival Lionel Messi made 382 appearances—a figure that even many season-ticket holders cannot surpass.
The list of a football globetrotter like Marko Marin is also intriguing. The current technical director of Red Star Belgrade played for 12 clubs in 10 countries. His most visited stadiums (as a professional) are Bremen’s Weserstadion and Gladbach’s Borussia-Park—the arenas of the clubs where he started his career (BMG) and where it took off (Werder). Only five other stadiums saw Marin play more than ten times. That brings the former national player closer to my own reality: my Groundhopping list includes just three arenas with more than ten matches, totaling 82 grounds. What about yours?
Adding a match to the list is possible through two methods: on each match report page (where lineups, scorers, etc., are shown), a small stadium icon with a plus sign appears next to the competition name. Clicking it leads either to registration (if not already done) or to a window where the match can be added to the list, with an option to navigate directly to the Groundhopping list. The second method goes through the user profile, accessible from the main navigation bar on both mobile and desktop browsers. In the profile navigation, the “Groundhopping” link allows users to search for clubs and their matches in two input fields below already added games.
The most visited matches from the community reveal many interesting statistics: alongside classic Groundhopping stats like stadiums visited and country points, it shows exactly how many different players you have seen live, how many goals from various scorers, and more.
