The Primeira Liga, officially known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese 🇵🇹 football and is contested by 18 teams. The three lowest-placed teams are relegated to the Liga Portugal 2. See below for our predictions for Portuguese football ⚽️ – generated from our machine learning algorithm, and updated daily 🔥.
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Founded in 1934 as Campeonato da Liga da Primeira Divisão, it was named Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Divisão from 1938 until 1999, when it was changed to its current naming. Over 70 teams have competed in the Primeira Liga, but only five have been crowned champions.
“The Big Three”
“The Big Three” is a nickname for the three most powerful sports clubs in Portugal. With the exception of Belenenses in 1945–46 and Boavista in 2000–01, only three clubs have won the Primeira Liga title. Benfica (38 times), Porto (30) and Sporting CP (20). These three clubs generally end up sharing the top three positions (thus, appearing more frequently in UEFA competitions). They are the only clubs to have played in every season of the competition.
These clubs dominate Portuguese football. Consequently, it has become typical for fans to support any of these teams as a “first club”, with a local team probably coming afterwards, if at all. The “Big Three” have the highest average attendance ratings every season in Portugal. Subsequently, the lack of support for local teams is considered to be one of the main reasons why Portuguese Football registers one of the worst attendance ratings in European Football’s best championships. S.C. Braga has finished runner-up once, third three times, and fourth twelve times during the last twenty seasons. They are the closest to breaking into “The Big Three.”
The Primeira Liga reached a world ranking of fourth according to IFFHS’s 2011 ranking. See below for Portuguese football predictions.