The fallacy of Portugal’s “uncompetitive” league | OneFootball

Fierce three-way title race year after year

While the Portuguese Primeira Liga as a whole may lack the strength in depth of Europe’s most high-profile leagues, when it comes to fighting to be crowned national champions, it provides a level of unpredictability and excitement that other major championships around the continent cannot match.

In the midst of another thrilling title race, where Benfica are vying to prevent city rivals Sporting from becoming the first team to retain the title in eight years, Zach Lowy delves into why competition is so tough at the top in Portugal.

Portugal’s niche in European football

For the past few decades, Liga Portugal Betclic has teetered on the precipice of Europe’s top five leagues. It does not have the financial affluence of the Premier League, or the historical legacy of Serie A, or the gargantuan attendances of the Bundesliga, or the star power of La Liga, or the overall popularity of Ligue 1. However, it remains one of the most well-followed “niche leagues” in football and a reliable breeding ground of world-class players.

If you asked a random person on the streets of London, Berlin, Paris, Rome or Madrid to name two things about the Portuguese top-flight, they would likely say:

Since its inauguration in 1934 as the Campeonato da Liga da Primeira Divisão, only five teams have claimed the championship, dominated by Benfica (38 league titles), Porto (30) and Sporting (20). Only two teams outside of the Três Grandes have conquered the top division – Belenenses in 1945/46 and Boavista 2000/01. It’s this staggering disparity that has resulted in many neutral viewers believing that the Portuguese top flight isn’t competitive enough to care about. However, if you dig deeper, you’ll find that this widespread notion could not be further from the truth.

Elusive back-to-backs

If there’s one Shakespeare line that could sum up the Primeira Liga’s past decade, it would be “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Since Benfica claimed four championships in a row between 2013/14 and 2016/17, no team has managed to win back-to-back league titles in Portugal’s top flight. Benfica’s hegemony came to an end in 2017/18 as a result of a dismal summer window which saw them sell key players like Ederson, Nélson Semedo and Victor Lindelöf and fail to sign adequate replacements. Their ambitions of claiming an unprecedented (for them) five straight titles were left unrealised, with the arrival of Sérgio Conceição as manager giving Porto a much-needed shot in the arm, restoring the Dragons to the zenith of Portuguese football, and ensuring only they can boast of winning five in the row, at the end of the 20th century.

Porto’s appointment of Sérgio Conceição in the summer of 2017 ended Benfica’s hegemony

Benfica’s ‘Rumo ao Penta” mission went up in flames in the presence of the fire-breathing Dragons, who looked set to claim a second straight title after leading the table for the first half of the 2018/19 campaign, finding themselves seven points clear of Benfica at the halfway point. Instead, Benfica turned a corner following the midseason appointment of Bruno Lage as manager and took 55 points from a potential 57 – a run that included a 2-1 comeback win at Porto. It was enough to edge their eternal rivals to the title by two points. Porto reclaimed the  crown from Benfica’s grasp the following year, whilst the 2020/21 season would see Sporting return to the promised land after 19 years and claim their long-awaited championship under new coach Rúben Amorim. The reign was short-lived, however, with Porto wrestling the trophy away from Sporting in 2022 and racking up a league-record 91 points.

The unpredictability of the Clássicos

The three biggest matches in Portuguese football are, in no particular order, Benfica vs. Porto, Benfica vs. Sporting, and Porto vs. Sporting. And in order to maximize entertainment value and create pulsating storylines, the league will typically schedule these Clássicos for the penultimate matchday. On 15 May 2021, Benfica won 4-3 against a Sporting side that likely was still inebriated following their title celebrations, putting an end to Sporting’s unbeaten season. On 7 May 2022, Zaidu Sanusi’s 94th-minute winner would see Porto secure the league title in Benfica’s own stadium. And on 21 May 2023, Benfica erased a two-goal deficit and snatched a 2-2 draw at Sporting thanks to João Neves’ 94th-minute equaliser in order to remain atop the league going into the final week, where they thrashed Santa Clara 3-0 and edged Porto to the championship by just two points.

If there’s one thing that loyal Liga Portugal viewers have grown to expect, it’s thrilling title races that go down to the wire. Apart from 2023/24, when Sporting finished 10 points clear of the competition to secure their second league title under Amorim, each of the last twelve championships have been decided by seven or fewer points. And this pattern looks set to continue this year in a season that has had more twists and turns than the water roller coasters at the Algarve’s Aquashow Park.

Top spot changes hands twice in two weeks

Sporting picked up where they left off and got off to a superb start, only to lose momentum after Amorim’s midseason departure to Manchester United. This, combined with Benfica’s resurgence under the return of Lage, has seen the title race heat up in recent weeks. The 28th matchday of the 2024/25 season would see Benfica demolish Porto 4-1, whilst Sporting conceded an 87th-minute equaliser and succumbed to a draw to Braga.

And yet, after finally climbing to the top spot, Benfica immediately relinquished their advantage by conceding a 95th-minute equaliser to Arouca and drawing 2-2, whereas Sporting edged Santa Clara 1-0 in the Azores to return to the leaderboard. With just five matches remaining, Sporting sit level on 69 points with Benfica but nevertheless occupy the perch due to having a superior goal differential (+51 vs. +46). The battle for domestic dominance will reach its climax in the penultimate matchday, when Benfica host Sporting at the Estádio da Luz.

Sporting and Benfica have fought out two tight title battles in the last two seasons

No foregone conclusions in Portugal

Let’s take a second to compare this competitive environment with the other major leagues. Manchester City have come out on top in six of the last seven Premier League seasons, Paris Saint-Germain have formed a chokehold over French football and won 11 of the last 13 Ligue 1 titles, whilst Bayern Munich are on track to claim their 12th Bundesliga crown in 13 seasons. And over in Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona’s duopoly has only rarely been threatened by the emergence of Atlético Madrid under Diego Simeone.

“Simeone is a born winner with a lot of character and who’s very focused, and because of this, he reached his objectives,” said Simeone’s former Atleti teammate Miguel Ángel Benítez. “Ever since Simeone came, Atlético is always fighting at the top. He’s a coach who psychologically prepares his players well, he’s very demanding…he’s one of the best coaches in the world.”

And yet, even with Atleti entering the pantheon of European heavyweights, they’ve only claimed two league titles this century (2013/14 and 2020/21) due to the financial superiority of Real and Barcelona. As for Serie A, no team has won back-to-back league titles since Juventus claimed nine championships in a row between 2011/12 and 2019/20, although that could be set to change soon with Inter currently sitting three points clear in first place with just six matches left. But in contrast to Liga Portugal, these Scudetto races have been completely anticlimactic – Inter won the title with a 12-point advantage in 2021, Napoli were 16 points to the good in 2023, whilst Inter cruised to the title in 2024 with a 19-point margin.

Getting to the top is tough; staying there is even tougher

It begs the question – just why is it so difficult to win back-to-back league titles in Portugal? According to Portuguese analyst Rémy Martins, it has to do with globalisation and an increasing difficulty of the top clubs in retaining their best players.

“There has been a paradigm shift over the past decade: Portuguese teams have lost a lot of their influence in South America, which was decisive in its status as a buyer-seller country. For a long time, there was a persisting idea that those who arrive from far away are always better than those available nearby. Whilst Radamel Falcao joined Porto at the age of 23, nowadays players like Rodrygo, Vinícius, Kendry Páez and Estevão sign with European giants before they even turn 18. As a result, Portuguese clubs are now looking inward to emancipate themselves from the obsession with foreign talent and give new importance to cultivating their own homegrown talents. This obligation to look inward, either in terms of players in other Portuguese teams or in their own academies, has opened up another perspective for clubs seeking competitive stability – they now have players who are predisposed to face their club’s project without thinking about the size of their next club.”

“At the same time, because of the inherent instability at the end of each season, it’s increasingly difficult to retain talent and increasingly difficult to maintain consistency from one season to the next,” added Martins. “Nowadays, a distinguished player like Hulk would not stay in Porto for as long as he did between 2008 and 2012. Because of this, there have been no major competitive differences between the squads of title contenders in recent years.”

Revolving door squad building

João Neves was sold by Benfica even though the player was happy to stay in Lisbon

Portuguese football clubs play on an unlevel playing field in terms of financial power. In contrast to teams like PSG, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid who are more than capable of hanging onto their best players for extended periods, Benfica, Porto and Sporting do not share this luxury, and as such, being able to plan in advance and convert their blockbuster transfer fees into productive summer markets is crucial to their success. When Benfica sold their top scorer Darwin Núñez to Liverpool in 2022 for €75 million, they responded by replenishing their squad with Alexander Bah, Enzo Fernández, David Neres and Fredrik Aursnes, all of whom proved crucial in ending their title drought.

No matter who wins the championship, both Benfica and Sporting look set to lose their star striker this summer with Vangelis Pavlidis and Viktor Gyökeres attracting interest from affluent teams across the continent. It’s seemingly only a matter of time before Pavlidis and Gyökeres pack their bags for a tubarão europeu, but first, they’ll be looking to lead their team to victory in a title race that has, as usual, been filled with tantalising storylines and mouth-watering drama.