Forgotten Futures Explore Stadiums Built for Dreams That Never Arrived

5. Arena da Amazônia (Brazil) – A Stadium in the Middle of Nowhere

Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, the Arena da Amazônia was built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, despite its isolated location and a lack of local teams to support it. Designed to look like woven baskets from Indigenous Brazilian culture, the stadium was an engineering marvel, with special cooling systems to combat the extreme heat. But after the World Cup ended, attendance plummeted, and the stadium has struggled to stay in use ever since. Maintaining it in the Amazon’s humid climate has been a nightmare, making it one of the most poorly planned stadiums in sports history. Opened: 2014 | Mostly Abandoned After World Cup