Portuguese Primeira Liga Tickets

Information and Background: Portuguese Primeira Liga

Portuguese Premiera Liga is the top flight competition in Portuguese football league system. It is also one of the few European top tiers which are identical to the domination of several teams throughout the history. The likes of Dutch Eredivisie, Greek and Turkish Super League are the examples of such. In Portuguese top division, the big three which have been taking turns in winning the league are Benfica, FC Porto and Sporting Lisbon. They remain the dominant sides up to this day.

Formed in 1934, this national league was initially a trial tournament with the name Campeonato da Liga da Primeira Divisão. It was the league with a mix of two formats, round robin and a knockout final round, preceded by the regional tournaments. However, four years later its name changed to Premiera Divisao with more until 1999. The new millennium saw another name alteration to Premiera Liga along side some commercials attachment to its name after the Portuguese League for Professional Football took over the administration in the same year.

Portguese League Details

Premiera Liga has been going through some changes in history. In the first edition, there were only eight teams participating in it. Then in 1939/40 season, the contestants were added to ten clubs. Another expansion from ten to twelve teams was approved in 1941/42 season as more teams from new region were added. Next, in 1945, the regional championship system was abolished and the regular centralised one with a double round robin format was applied instead. Finally, the 2014/15 season, the contestants were expanded to 18 with 34 games in each season.

Since 2002, or two years after the competition was renamed Premiera Liga, the league administrator has sold its naming rights and several companies have had the opportunity to put their brands alongside the league. The first one to receive such rights was Galp Energia. The league was then named SuperLiga GalpEnergia from 2002 to 2005. After that, it became Liga betandwin.com and bwin LIGA within 2005 to 2008 following the success of the Austrian gambling sites in securing the rights. In 2008, it was the turn of Sangres beer to be named after the league. The collaboration with the local brewery company endured till 2014 after another company, ZON Multimedia, also joined the sponsorship in 2010. Unfortunately, it did not continue at the end of 2013/14 season. ZON which re-branded itself to NOS, was the solo partner of Portuguese league between 2014/15 and 2020/21. The 2021/22 season marked the return of BWin again as their main sponsor.

Among the dominating big three, Benfica is the record holder for the champions with 37 titles in hand, followed by Porto winning 29 times and Sporting Lisbon with 19 trophies. Meanwhile, for the individual record, Fernando Peyroteo is the all time top scorer in the competition with 332 goals while playing for Sporting Lisbon from 1937 to 1949, whereas Manuel Fernandes holds the appearance record with 486 games in CUF’s, Sporting Lisbon’s and Vitoria Setubal’s shirt.

These so-called big three in Premiera Liga has brought their own issue. It is something the Portuguese League for Professional Football needs to deal with when it comes to the average spectators in the stadium and TV viewers, despite being ranked as the sixth best league in Europe. The gap between the big three teams and the non big three ones has been fairly wide. They enjoy more than 40,000 fans coming to the venues each game while the non elite sides only have around 10,000 or even less attendance. No wonder that the historic moments in this competition are not quite as many as their neighbor’s, Spanish La Liga for example.

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o you want to witness the new records made or simply to support your team in Premiera Liga for their best campaign each season at the stadium for home and away fixtures? Then log on SafeTicketCompare.com for more info about the best seat in the venues and the best deals to purchase the tickets.

Historic Moments

Despite the big three domination, this top flight league still has some memorable seasons to share, either related to them or outside their own. The first one was in fact not about the big three. In 1945/46 season, Belenenses was the first ever club which could stop the big three dominance. Such did not repeat until the new millennium, to be exact in 2001 when Petit and Co helped Boavista meddle the big three again. It was their first and only league trophy in the club’s history.

Next, in 1972/73 season, Benfica became the first team winning the league unbeaten. In late 1990s, Porto set the record of five consecutive league victories from 1994/95 to 1998/99. In the following season, Sporting Lisbon ended their long wait for top tier title after their last one in 1981/82. The former club of Cristiano Ronaldo also did it again in 2020/21 under Ruben Amorim after twenty years league title drought.

Last but not least, in 2010/11 season when Andre Villas-Boas led Porto to clinch the title with the biggest margin to the second place, 21 points. It is the record that still stands up to now. In that glorious season, Radamel Falcao and Co also managed to lift the trophy of Europa League after securing a narrow win against Sporting Braga in the first ever all Portuguese final in the continental competition. The Colombian forward himself bagged the only goal of the game.

List of Past Winners since 2000

• 1999/2000 Sporting Lisbon
• 2000/01 Boavista Porto
• 2001/02 Sporting Lisbon
• 2002/03 FC Porto
• 2003/04 FC Porto
• 2004/05 SL Benfica
• 2005/06 FC Porto
• 2006/07 FC Porto
• 2007/08 FC Porto
• 2008/09 FC Porto
• 2009/10 SL Benfica
• 2010/11 FC Porto
• 2011/12 FC Porto
• 2012/13 FC Porto
• 2013/14 SL Benfica
• 2014/15 SL Benfica
• 2015/16 SL Benfica
• 2016/17 SL Benfica
• 2017/18 FC Porto
• 2018/19 SL Benfica
• 2019/20 FC Porto
• 2020/21 Sporting Lisbon