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Football in Portugal
Football fans at theEstádio da Luz
Country	Portugal
Governing body	FPF
National team	Men's national team
First played	1875; 150 years ago (1875)
Club competitions
List League: Primeira Liga Campeonato Nacional Feminino Liga Portugal 2 Terceira Liga Campeonato de Portugal Cups: Taça de Portugal Taça de Portugal Feminina Taça da Liga Taça da Liga Feminina Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Supertaça de Portugal Feminina
International competitions
FIFA World Cup UEFA European Championship UEFA Nations League FIFA Club World Cup UEFA Champions League UEFA Women's Champions League UEFA Europa League UEFA Conference League UEFA Super Cup

Association football (Portuguese:futebol) is the most popularsport in Portugal. Approximately 75% of the people in Portugal are interested in football.^[1] It has a long and storied history in the country, following its introduction in 1875 in cities such asFunchal,Lisbon,Porto andCoimbra byEnglish merchants and Portuguese students arriving back home from studying in England. This led to the establishment of local clubs dedicated to the practice of the sport.

Initially, football was played between neighbour clubs, but soon enough citywide and regional tournaments started to take place around the nation. Soon after the start of the 20th century, the need to establish which club was the best in Portugal culminated with the organizing of the "Campeonato de Portugal" (now known as "Taça de Portugal"), with subsequent bragging rights going mostly to clubs from Lisbon and Porto.

Portugal's top domestic league, thePrimeira Liga, was founded in 1934 and is home to internationally successful clubs such asS.L. Benfica,FC Porto andSporting CP – the "Big Three", who usually dominate the league. With a combined eleven trophies won to date, the measure of success by Portuguese clubs in international competition is as follows: fourEuropean Cup/UEFA Champions League, twoUEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League, oneEuropean Cup Winners' Cup, oneUEFA Intertoto Cup, oneUEFA Super Cup and twoIntercontinental Cup/Toyota Cup.

Despite the production of footballers such asEusébio,Luís Figo andCristiano Ronaldo (Ballon d'Or winners), thePortugal national team have been, for the most part, underachievers at international level when compared to their youth squads, who have won just about every European and world title available. InFIFA World Cup, Portugal's best finishes were third in1966 and fourth in2006. More recently, Portugal won their first major title, theUEFA Euro 2016, over hostsFrance. Until then, Portugal had beenrunners-up toGreece as hosts in2004, and semifinalists in1984,2000 and2012. In2019, Portugal won the first edition of theUEFA Nations League, beatingthe Netherlands.

Football started to gain popularity in Portugal in the late 19th century, brought by Portuguese students who returned from England.^[2]

The first organized game in the country took place in 1875 inCamacha,Madeira, organized by Madeira-bornHarry Hinton, who brought a football from England where he was studying. Popularity quickly spread across the island. Harry would go on to become honorary president ofC.S. Marítimo.^[3][4]

The Pinto Basto brothers,Guilherme,Eduardo andFrederico, were the fundamental heads behind its spread in mainland Portugal. They had been introduced to football while studying in England atSt George's College and Eduardo played a decisive role in the development of football in Portugal and particularly in Lisbon when he ordered a series of footballs from England, which he distributed to various military units, thus giving a huge boost to the practice of this sport.^[5] On the other hand, Guilherme organized an exhibition inCascais in October 1888, thefirst known football match in mainland Portugal, which was a rehearsal for a more serious and competitive match organized three months later, on 22 January 1889, held in Lisbon where today'sCampo Pequenobullring is located.^[5][6][7] It was contested between the Portuguese noblemen, who were made up of the best players from the 1888 game, and a group of English workers living in Lisboa, who were made up of employees of Cabo Submarino, Casa Graham and other English houses installed in Lisbon.^[5][6] Consequently, football started attracting the attention of high society, distinguished by the Luso-British rivalry.^[8][5]

The first football club to have been founded in Portugal wasClub Lisbonense in 1892, which was founded by the Pinto Basto brothers together with other football pioneers in the city such as the Vilar brothers (Carlos andAfonso) and Paiva Raposo. Club Lisbonense played its first games against the English from Carcavelos, who would eventually organize themselves into a Club, theCarcavelos Club.^[5] These two groups were the first promoters of football in Lisbon, and football began taking root in the city, especially among the youth, thus the game soon reached colleges and so, Lisbonense and Carcavelos are joined by a team made up of students fromColégio Villar.^[5] The three groups began to play several matches against each other and were eventually joined by a team ofBraço de Prata, which included several Englishmen and build-up an Invictus status. However, a certainClube de Lisboa committed the feat of beating the "invincible" team of Braço de Prata by 2–0 in 1903.^[5] In April 1893, the Estrela Foot-Ball Club appears, captained by Commander Joaquim Costa.^[5]

Then came the presentation of a football team from theClub Tauromático Group, which again included the three brothers Pinto Basto (Guilherme, Eduardo, and Frederico), among others, such as Hugo O'Neil, who had played in the 1888 game.^[5] At the end of January 1893, however, the Group of Club Tauromático becomes theGrupo dos Irmãos Pinto Basto (English:Pinto Basto Brothers Group). Moreover, the Pinto Basto brothers, in addition to being part of and playing for several clubs already, had their own group, the "Foot-Ball Club Swifts", where Guilherme was the captain and his brother Eduardo was the sub-captain.^[5]

On 28 September 1893, Foot-Ball Club do Porto was reportedly organized inPorto, which was the first football club to be established in the North of the country (according to some sources, it is the club currently known asFC Porto,^[9] including the club itself since 1982, while other sources claim it to be two separate entities. According to the club's history book prior to 1982, FC Porto was founded on 2 August 1906).^[10] In February 1894, the students of Casa Pia in Lisbon organize their football group. Other clubs who emerged around this time were Foot-Ball Académico, in 1895, and Clube de Campo de Ourique, in 1896.^[5] This was followed by a period of some lack of interest in football (1896–99), due to the lack of fields, goals, equipment, and the rudeness of its practice, with the local press even starting to call it the "kickback" game. During this period it wasCasa Pia, which emerged in 1892, who came to play the most important role in the expansion and progress of football.^[5]

Thefirst cup match in the country was held inPorto on 2 March 1894, and it was attended byKing Carlos andQueen Amelia.^[11] This is possibly the first match in whichextra time was played as the royal couple arrived too late to see the first half and the Queen demanded that the game continue after the end, because she was enjoying it so much.^[8]

By century's end, associations such as Clube Lisbonense, Carcavelos Sport Club, Braço de Prata, Real Ginásio Clube Português, Estrela Futebol Clube, Futebol Académico, Campo de Ourique, Foot-Ball Club do Porto, andSport Clube Vianense had been founded.

The failed attempts to reorganize Club Lisbonense (1892) and Grupo Estrela (1893) paved the way for the appearance of the Club Internacional de Foot-Ball (CIF) on 8 December 1902, which was the natural extension of theGrupo dos Irmãos Pinto Basto and theFoot-Ball Club Swits. CIF was the first Portuguese club to play abroad, defeatingMadrid Fútbol Clube in 1907 inMadrid.^[5]

On 31 March 1914, the three regional associations that existed in Portugal (Lisbon,Portalegre, and Porto) merged to create a national association called a União Portuguesa de Futebol, the predecessor of the current national association, thePortuguese Football Federation, which was formed on 28 May 1926.

The Portuguese were one of the first Europeans to explore Africa. They have influenced a lot of their former colonies, notably in the realm of football. This was mostly due to the concept ofLusotropicalism, which became popularized during the tenure ofAntónio Salazar. The Portuguese enthusiasm for football led to the spread of the sport into its former overseas colonies ofAngola,Mozambique,Guinea,Cape Verde,S. Tomé and Principe,Portuguese India,Macau, andTimor. Eventually, Portugal would attempt to integrate their colonies, which would lead to them having many African players in the teams on the mainland. Introduced in the colonies as early as the 19th century, football became increasingly popular. By the 1950s many Africans would support football teams on the mainland. The popularity of the game in the colonies also meant that there were many people who wanted to play it professionally. Many top players from the former colonies have represented Portugal at the international level, as well as playing for many clubs in the various tiers of the national and international leagues, most notably in the past the likes ofFernando Peyroteo,Matateu,Hilário,Costa Pereira,Coluna,José Águas,Eusébio,Jordão,Shéu andAbel Xavier.^[12] But Eusébio's impact in Portuguese football stood out among them all to such an extent that when Eusébio arrived in Lisbon in December 1960 still as a player ofSporting Lourenço Marques, Sporting CP had won ten league titles, which was as many as Benfica's, and when, 15 years later, Eusébio, recognised as Benfica's best player of all time, left Benfica, Benfica had won 21 championships to just 14 for Sporting CP.^[13] Eusébio is considered one of the greatest Portuguese football players ever^[14] and his role in the1966 FIFA World Cup is still remembered today as a significant milestone in Portugal’s football history.^[15]

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The main domestic football competition is thePrimeira Liga, and the dominant Portuguese teams areS.L. Benfica,FC Porto andSporting CP, which form the "Big Three" clubs in Portugal. Other clubs, such asC.F. Os Belenenses,Boavista FC,Vitória S.C., andS.C. Braga, have been contenders for the coveted place of fourth biggest club.^{[16][unreliable source?][17][18][19][unreliable source?][20]}

One of the oldest clubs still in existence isAcadémica de Coimbra, founded in 1887.^{[citation needed]} Other historical club isBoavista F.C., founded in 1903.S.L. Benfica was founded in 1904 asSport Lisboa, who merged with Grupo Sport Benfica in 1908.Sporting CP was founded in 1906.F.C. Porto was founded in 1906 and changed its foundation year to 1893 in the 1980s.Leixões S.C. was founded in 1907;Vitória F.C.,C.S. Marítimo,C.D. Nacional in 1910;S.C. Olhanense in 1912;S.C. Espinho,Portimonense S.C. andAcadémico de Viseu F.C. in 1914;C.F. Os Belenenses in 1919. The success of these earlier clubs inspired the rapid spread of football to all corners of Portugal.

After the end of World War I, the sprouting of football clubs all over the country gained momentum and, in the 1920s,S.C. Braga,Vitória S.C.,Gil Vicente F.C. andS.C. Beira Mar among many others, were founded, further asserting the popularity of the sport wherever it was played, with stadiums filled to maximum capacity. By then, the local talent always wanting to better the opposition further improved the quality of the players' training and tactical strategy awareness by investing and importing top foreign coaching and managerial staff from abroad, resulting in the refinement and improvement of the local game quality being able to stand up to top international levels. Some early clubs from the late 1800s and early 1900s, likeCarcavelinhos, for example, did not survive and either merged with other clubs or became extinct altogether.

At European level, before the advent of UEFA-sanctioned competitions, such as theEuropean Cup, theEuropean Cup Winners' Cup and theUEFA Cup, which became regularly scheduled competitions, Benfica won the now defunctLatin Cup, a competition organized annually by the football associations of France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, involving those nations' top teams.

^[21]

Below is listed every team to have won any of the major domestic competitions (organized byLPFP andFPF) and international trophies organized byUEFA andFIFA.

Bold denotes club with the most number of trophies in specified category.

On 26 May 2010,Portugal attained the third place in theFIFA World Ranking, their highest ever. They repeated this feat in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018. Their lowest rank was 43rd overall in 1998. In recent years, Portugal has consistently maintained a top 10 and, sometimes, a top 5 FIFA world rank position.

In 2004 Portugal hostedUEFA Euro and reachedits final but were beaten byGreece 1–0. In worldwide terms, Portugal have reached the semi-finals of theFIFA World Cup twice: in the1966 edition, whereEusébio was the top scorer with nine goals, and in the2006 edition, where the team led by captainLuís Figo marked the World Cup debut ofCristiano Ronaldo.

Portugal also participates to theLusofonia Games and takes part in its football tournaments. In 2014, Portugal was one of the eight nations to take part in the firstUnity World Cup.

Following the retirement of all players from its "golden generation", Portugal, led by managerFernando Santos, wonEuro 2016, defeating hostsFrance 1–0 in thefinal.^[24] In 2019, Portugal won theinaugural UEFA Nations League by defeatingNetherlands 1–0 in thefinal. They won a second Nations League title in2025, after afinal victory againstSpain.

This is alist of football stadiums in Portugal where thenational team plays most of its games.

• Football in Portugal

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