How often does a footballer step onto the pitch in their home stadium compared to a fan visiting their favorite club’s ground? For season ticket holders, the contest might be close, or even tilt in favor of the stand spectator. But for casual visitors—like the author of this text—a different picture emerges. While the Adolf-Jäger-Kampfbahn of Hamburg’s regional league side Altona 93 tops my personal list with 40 visits since 1998, Manuel Neuer (40), Cristiano Ronaldo (41), and Toni Kroos (36) each boast two venues where they have notched well over 100 appearances in their careers.
A database analysis, inspired by the Transfermarkt Groundhopping Tool, reveals that Neuer has guarded the goal 295 times at Munich’s Allianz Arena and 112 times at the Veltins-Arena, the home of his youth club Schalke 04. Behind these, five further German stadiums count at least 20 appearances by the former national team goalkeeper.
For Kroos, Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu—where he played from 2014 until his career end in 2024—leads clearly with 199 matches, followed by Bayern’s Allianz Arena with 113. He also made 19 appearances at the Estadio Alfredo di Stafano, Real’s temporary home during renovations.
What about Ronaldo? A career largely free of major injuries yields 217 games at the Bernabéu, 172 at Manchester United’s Old Trafford, and roughly 70 each for 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 number that exceeds even many season ticket holders.
Equally fascinating is the list of globetrotter Marko Marin. The current Technical Director of Red Star Belgrade played for twelve clubs in ten countries. His most-visited stadiums as a professional are Bremen’s Weserstadion and Mönchengladbach’s Borussia-Park—the arenas where his career began (BMG) and gained momentum (Werder). Only five more venues saw Marin play more than ten times, bringing the former Germany international closer to my own reality. In my personal Groundhopping list, only three stadiums feature more than ten matches, with 82 “grounds” in total. What about yours?
You can add a match to the list in two ways: On each match report page—where lineups, scorers, etc., are shown—a small stadium icon with a plus appears next to the competition name. A click leads either to registration (if not yet done) or to a pop-up where the match can be added. That window also offers a direct link to the Groundhopping list. Alternatively, go through your user profile, accessible from the main navigation bar on the right in both mobile and desktop views. In the profile navigation, find the “Groundhopping” link, where—under previously added matches—you can search for clubs and their games using two input fields.
**The most visited games of the community**
Once the list is created, many interesting statistics become visible: alongside classic Groundhopping stats like stadiums visited and country points, you’ll also see exactly how many different players you’ve watched live or how many goals scored by various players.
