A group of architects from Brunswick, Germany, won the commission - the same firm that had modernized the Hanover stadium for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Their design paid deliberate homage to the old Fonte Nova, preserving its distinctive horseshoe shape with the open end facing the Dique do Tororó, a lake in central Salvador. From inside the bowl, fans look out across water toward the sculpted figures of Mestre Didi's orixás rising from the middle of the Dique - a view no other World Cup stadium can offer. The building is a replica in spirit, not in detail. What it remembers is the footprint, the orientation, the relationship to the lake. The rest is entirely new.

The roof is what you see first. It is a lightweight metal structure built on what engineers call a ray and ring system, covered in PTFE membrane and held up by external pillars. The inspiration came from the AWD-Arena in Hanover, but the effect at Arena Fonte Nova is its own thing - a translucent white canopy that shades every seat in the stadium and glows from within under evening floodlights. The first match under this roof, played on April 7, 2013, was a Campeonato Baiano game between city rivals. Vitória beat Bahia 5-1. Vitória's Renato Cajá scored the first goal in the new stadium, a moment that locked his name into the record books. The match was less glorious for the architects - supporters complained about blind spots, excess dust, and puddles that had not yet drained from the construction site. The shakedown flight of any new building.

One year after opening, the stadium hosted matches in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Two years after that, it was a venue for the football competition of the 2016 Summer Olympics, held in Rio de Janeiro but spread across Brazilian cities. The 2019 Copa América brought more matches. The stadium is now on the list of candidates to host games in the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup, which Brazil will stage. For a building that had to be justified by its public use, Arena Fonte Nova has earned its seat at the global table. President Dilma Rousseff cut the ribbon at its inauguration. Presidents, tournaments, and tens of thousands of fans have cycled through its gates since.

Money follows football, and football follows money. In 2013, the brewery Itaipava - part of Grupo Petrópolis - bought the naming rights for 100 million reais, making Arena Fonte Nova the first 2014 World Cup stadium to sign such a deal. For a decade the building was officially known as Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova. When the contract ended in 2023, the betting company Casa de Apostas stepped in, and the stadium became the Casa de Apostas Arena Fonte Nova in 2024. Brazilian fans mostly ignore the sponsor names and call the place simply Fonte Nova or Nova Fonte, as they have since the original stadium stood on the same ground in the middle of the last century.

The designers based the multipurpose model on Amsterdam's Johan Cruijff Arena - a stadium that hosts football by night and everything else by day and in between. Arena Fonte Nova follows the same logic. It books concerts. It hosts corporate events. It is a business venue, a tourist stop, a rallying point for Salvador's two biggest clubs and for the Brazilian national team when selection matches come to Bahia. The stadium stands on the footprint of loss - seven people who went to a football match in 2007 and did not come home. It also stands as what Salvador decided to build in their place. A horseshoe open to a lake, a roof spread like wings, a building that fills and empties and fills again with the noise of people who love this game.