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Since the forming of the Primeira Liga, SL Benfica, FC Porto, and Sporting CP have never been relegated.
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The ‘Big Three’ share all but two of the nation’s top division titles.
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Sporting’s triumph in 2020/21 broke an 18-year duopoly between FC Porto and Benfica.
Originally introduced by English merchants and Portuguese students who had been studying in England in the 19th Century, in 2025, Portugal will celebrate 150 years of organised football.
For the majority of this time, three clubs have dominated the top flight of the professional game. Since being founded in 1934, the Primeira Liga has only been won two times by clubs outside of its ‘Big Three.’
Sporting CP, FC Porto, and SL Benfica have been there from the beginning, have never finished below ninth in the top flight, and share 88 of the 90 titles coming into the 2024/25 season.
As you’d expect, it’s this trio of Portuguese football clubs that jostle for the top spot of being the biggest team in Portugal and are the frontrunners in the online betting to claim another crown this season.
Biggest Clubs in Portuguese Football
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SL Benfica
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FC Porto
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Sporting CP
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SC Braga
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Boavista FC
Choosing the biggest football clubs in Portugal boils down to finding which ones have the most silverware, have been the most dominant in recent times, and command the largest global footprints.
Naturally, this makes for a rather straightforward selection process in the top three places, while the teams in the next two slots could arguably swing in and out without much by way of major national or continental honours.
5) Boavista FC
Boavista FC are the only team in modern Primeira Liga history to pip the ‘Big Three’ to the title, climbing to the summit in 2000/01 and landing second place the following season.
They weren’t the first to break the reign, but when Belenenses did it in 1946, the league was a little over a decade old, so arguably, the ‘Big Three’ had yet to be cemented in Portugal.
Joining their league title, Boavista FC boasts five Portuguese Cup (Taça da Portugal) wins, three of which came in the 1970s, while the other two were hoisted in 1991/92 and 1996/97.
Their regular showings in the UEFA Cup throughout the 1990s, run to the semi-finals in 2002/03, and league triumph as the millennium turned in mark the club’s best era, with more recent seasons placing them in the bottom half of the top division.
4) SC Braga
Runners up in 2010, the 1921-founded Sporting Club de Braga first broke into the Primeira Liga in 1947 and have since accumulated 68 seasons of first-division football – including what’s currently a 49-year run up top.
They’re without a league title, but through the 00s and 10s, they established themselves as a real force below the ‘Big Three,’ landing second in 2010 and regularly qualifying for European competitions.
Three Portuguese League Cups (Taça da Liga) and three Taça da Portugal wins – the majority of which have come from 2012 onwards – place SC Braga as one of the country’s most decorated teams.
Finishing fourth in 16 of the last 20 Primeira Liga campaigns, with a run to the UEFA Europa League final and a UEFA Intertoto Cup win in that time, SC Braga is firmly the fourth biggest football club in Portugal right now.
3) Sporting CP
One of the two major clubs from the capital and the first entry of the ‘Big Three’ on this list of the biggest football clubs in Portugal, Sporting CP has only recently reasserted itself as a true title challenger.
Under the stewardship of Rúben Amorim, the 2020/21 season saw the former Braga boss top the table by five points with a +45 goal difference, qualify for the Champions League, and snap an 18-year streak without the title.
This return to the top was followed up by another win last season that makes for two titles to each of the ‘Big Three’ over the last six seasons without any back-to-back winners in that spell.
Still firmly in third place, Sporting CP boasts 20 Primeira Liga titles, 22 finishes in second, 17 Taça da Portugal trophies, and another four from the Taça da Liga.
However, the third biggest club in Portuguese football – the one that forged Cristiano Ronaldo, no less – is yet to win a major European honour beyond the 1963/64 Cup Winners’ Cup.
2) FC Porto
The residents of Estádio do Dragão spent the 1990s and 2000s successfully closing the gap on what was an overwhelmingly dominant SL Benfica side, doing so by collecting 14 Primeira Liga wins in those two decades.
With Sporting CP taking a back seat in recent years, it’s been FC Porto continuing to take the fight to Benfica, and now, they boast 30 league titles, 29 finishes in second, and 20 Taça da Portugal triumphs.
Importantly for the rankings of the biggest football clubs in Portugal, FC Porto have also found success on the continent multiple times, including with a win of the big one.
After winning the UEFA Cup in 2002/03 – the club’s second major European honour – the José Mourinho-led Dragões went one better in 2003/04 to claim the UEFA Champions League with a 3-0 win over AS Monaco in the final.
In the 2024/25 season, FC Porto will sense an opportunity to claim yet another league title. While trailing Sporting CP at the time of writing in the football betting and table, Amorim’s departure may clear the way for dos Dragões.
1) SL Benfica
Way out in front with 38 Primeira Liga titles, 30 second place finishes, seven Taça da Liga trophies, and 26 Taça da Portugal triumphs, SL Benfica remain the most successful and biggest club in the country.
Greatly helping this has been the return to dominance in the mid-2010s. Split by successive runs of league wins by FC Porto in the 00s and early 10s, Benfica put their foot down in 2013 to romp to four league wins in a row.
The Lisbon-based club has remained an ever-present force atop the league standings, won the title again in 2019 and 2023, and has regularly gone on deep runs in Europe.
In the UEFA Europa League, Benfica went to back-to-back finals in 2012/13 and 2013/14, and they’ve made it as far as the quarter-finals in the UEFA Champions League six times – including in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
While it’s tight at the very top, SL Benfica, FC Porto, and Sporting CP far outrank any other team in the country to be considered as the biggest football clubs in Portugal.
*Credit for the photos in this article belongs to Adobe*
