Are we in the early stages of a dramatic collapse in Portuguese club football?

The dust is beginning to settle on a dreary night for Portuguese football. A nation that prides itself on seeing its teams thrive on the continental stage were obliterated in emphatic style.

It was a slow and torturous watch for fans of Portuguese football as one by one the country’s clubs succumbed to their fate, dropping out of the Europa League in meek fashion in the round of 32 across the space of just 28 hours.

It all started so promisingly, of course. Portugal may have had no representatives in the Champions League knockout phase, but four teams remained in the Europa League round of 32, Portugal thus having more sides left in the competition than any other country as Benfica, Porto, Sporting and Braga all looked to make this a potentially memorable campaign for the nation. And they did. Just for all the wrong reasons.

Their simultaneous exits from Europe’s secondary competition means that Portugal, for the first time since the 1998-99 season, will have no club playing in European competition beyond the month of February.

It’s the end of a 20-year record that, likely, nobody even knew existed, but it’s a telling one too - in some ways, perhaps, an end of an era. Portugal prides itself on being able to compete with some of the best in the world, yet here we clearly see that Portugal are moving in the opposite direction, getting further away from being able to compete even in Europe’s secondary competition, falling extraordinarily short of lifting the title.

The Champions League has, for a decade now, seemed completely out of reach for Portuguese football clubs, but the Europa League is where Portugal could thrive; that’s the standard of competition all four of the top sides in the country could have very realistic ambitions of winning. That they all fell in the Round of 32 is a shocking wake-up call that epitomises just how far Portuguese football has fallen over the years.

And it really begs the question: is this the early stages of a collapse in Portuguese football? Are we approaching a point where the top sides in the country sink into mediocrity and fail to compete on a regular basis in European competition? The signs are not good.

Not to sound too hyperbolic, but Portuguese football is now facing a bit of a make-or-break moment. When the quality of your league begins to decline, it’s very difficult to reverse that trajectory, and while there is still the remnants of great talent amongst the “Big Three” in the national game, they need to begin making some significant changes if they want to remain relevant on the continental stage.

Just how bad a European campaign was this for Portugal?

To briefly and completely contradict what was said previously, on paper, this actually turned out to be a relatively strong campaign for Portuguese football on the continental stage. Portugal should be aiming for around 10.000 points in the UEFA Coefficient; anything above that has to be considered a very good return. And Portugal finished on 10.300.

A success, you can certainly say. That score is better than two of the previous four years for the nation, well above the dismal 8.083 Portuguese clubs as a collective scored in 2016-17, and quite substantially higher than the 9.666 scored in the 2017-18 season.

Basing this on UEFA Coefficient alone, this has been an above average season for Portuguese football, and could suggest that things aren’t quite as dire as is being suggested. After all, Portugal are currently the 5th best performing nation in European football based on this season alone, above France and only below the big four of England, Spain, Germany and Italy.

And, of course, Russian clubs scored a disastrous combined coeffient score of 4.666 this campaign, a points total that will now haunt them for the next five years and all but confirms that Portugal should, bar an incredible resurgence from one of Russia, Belgium, Ukraine or the Netherlands - or an unprecedented, historic capitulation of Portuguese football - have three Champions League places for the foreseeable future. And isn’t that what this is all about?

However, there are a few things to point out here, and reasons to read into Portugal’s overall combined success this season in UEFA competition with caution. Firstly, that ‘unprecendented, historic capitulation of Portuguese football’ may sound unlikely, but it is certainly within the realms of possibility. What happened to Russia this year could absolutely happen to Portuguese football in one of the coming seasons, which would instantly and completely eradicate Portugal’s firm grip on 6th place in the UEFA Coefficient standings.

To illustrate just how possible that is using this year as a case study, refer to Portugal’s Vitoria Guimaraes, who defied the odds by qualifying for the group stage of the UEFA Europa League. Defied the odds is accurate, as they were the unseeded side in the play-off round, and were quite fortunate to avoid some heavyweights as they drew Romanian outfit FCSB instead, beating them 1-0 over two legs to make it to the Europa League proper.

Portugal, however, cannot rely on their 5th place team making it through all those rounds of qualifying to advance to the Europa League group stage and pick up valuable points to contribute towards the coefficient rankings year on year. It is, ultimately, a rare occurence, and had Guimaraes not made it to the group stage, and had Guimaraes gone out in the second qualifying round instead - which is the stage Portugal’s 5th-placed European representatives were knocked out in last season - Portugal would have finished this season on just 8.500 points instead. Suddenly, this wouldn’t have been such a good season for Portuguese football at all.

Last year, even Braga failed to make it past the Europa League third qualifying round, losing to Zorya on away goals. This season, however, they went all the way to the Europa League round of 32, an incredible improvement in performance - and yet still Portugal as a collective have a lower UEFA Coefficient points tally this season compared to last.

Indeed, had both Braga and Portugal’s 5th-placed European representative performed as badly this year as they did last season, Portugal would have finished the season on a measly score of 5.900. That is a startlingly low score, and shows quite evidently how it was actually the overperformance of the two sides you don’t usually expect to do well in European competition that carried Portugal to a strong season - and Portuguese football absolutely cannot depend on that overperformance happening year upon year, That’s just not realistic.

To further emphasise the collapse of the “Big Three” in Portuguese football and the overreliance of the nation on Braga and Guimaraes punching above their weight, look at the tables below. The top table shows that last year, Benfica, Porto and Sporting alone scored a combined total of 10.600 points. The bottom table shows that this year, those same three teams combined scored just 5.600 points.

In 2018-19, the “Big Three” scored 97% of Portugal’s overall score, which is an incredible statstic that shows how far ahead of the rest of the Primeira Liga they still are in the modern game. This year, though, they scored just 54% of Portugal’s total score, an extraordinary reduction that confirms the fact Portugal only scored the respectable 10.300 overall coefficient score thanks almost entirely to the excellent efforts of both Braga and Guimaraes. And I reiterate, Portugal simply cannot rely on the likes of Braga and Guimaraes regularly overachieving to maintain their status as the 6th most reputable league on the continent. It is not a common occurrence.

It also nicely indicates the dramatic collapse of Portuguese club football at the highest level. You could argue that it’s a blip, a one-off season that won’t be repeated. And that’s possible, of course it is. Next season, we may see the likes of Benfica and Porto performing to the standard we’ve become accustomed to. But the signs are not particularly encouraging.

We have therefore reached a crossroad in Portuguese football, a moment that could define Portugal’s very status and relevance in the eyes of the world. Will this be a wake-up call and ensure Portuguese football gets back on track, or is this the start of the not-so-slow demise of the Portuguese game?

The near-collapse story of Dutch football is a sobering reminder that a rapid decline of one of Europe’s top leagues is not impossible.

Throwback to the 2000s. The Dutch Eredivisie was, unsurprisingly, seen as one of the strongest leagues in European football, peaking at 7th in the UEFA coefficient in 2004-05. They were always around 7th to 8th in the rankings, never challenging the established top leagues, but always a highly reputable league in their own right.

However, four subpar efforts in a row from Dutch sides as a collective between 2012 and 2016, where AZ reaching the quarter-final of the Europa League in the 2013-14 campaign and PSV getting into the Champions League round of 16 in 2015-16 were the only two highlights of note, ensured Dutch football was on the cusp of sinking into obscurity, averaging just 5.500 coefficient points a season in that time - a far cry away from the 10.000 points or so Portugal are currently averaging year on year.

Two years later, which was as recently as the 2017-18 season, they scored a total coefficient tally of 2.900 for the entire season; a beyond disastrous, scarcely believable total, which was lower than that which the likes of North Macedonia and Belarus managed to obtain in the same year, and put the Netherlands on par with the likes of Moldova and Albania. It was a humiliating year for the Netherlands, where PSV, Ajax and Utrecht all failed to even reach the group stage of the Europa League, while Vitesse finished bottom of their group having qualified for the group stage directly.

Had it not been for Ajax’s heroics in reaching the Europa League final the season just before, which almost single-handedly earned the Netherlands a superb 9.100 coefficient points, Dutch football would have faded into virtual irrelevance amongst the top leagues in the world, falling to around 17th in the UEFA coefficient standings, facing a monnumental task to climb back up the ladder, sitting closer to Norway in 29th than Turkey in 10th, reduced to just 3 teams, at best, in European competition.

Ajax’s incredible showing in that season meant Netherlands instead remained 14th - not much higher than they could have dropped to, but crucially kept them within touching distance of 10th and an automatic Champions League qualifying place. Dutch football reacted to their disastrous season perfectly, regrouping and refocusing to ensure such an event wouldn’t happen again.

Ajax went on to reach the Champions League semi-final the very next season against all odds, and the Netherlands are now 9th in the UEFA Coefficient standings, back where they will feel they belong. But it was far too close for comfort for the Dutch, who surely know just how close they were to potential oblivion and a long and difficult journey back up the rankings.

Other nations weren’t as fortunate. The Greek Superleague was as high as 6th in 2002-03, above Portugal. Now, they sit 17th.

The rise and fall of the Romanian league was even more dramatic. After exceptional showings in 2005-06 and 2006-07 from their clubs in European comeptition, they rose to 7th in the UEFA Coefficient. Now, they’re in 25th.

The warning is there for Portuguese football; complacency can be your downfall, and success isn’t guaranteed. Portugal needs to take a long, hard look at itself, or risk the demise of its very status in world football.

Ruben Dias. Photo author: Anton Zaitsev. License link.