100 years of Portuguese football: A look at the handful of Portuguese clubs to have ever won a major trophy

The dominance of 3 clubs in Portuguese football is recognised globally. There is virtually no league in the world that has had the sustained dominance of such a small cluster of clubs as is the case in Portugal.

Benfica, Porto and Sporting have been, and likely always will be, the dominant forces in Portuguese football, having won 83, 79 and 53 major trophies respectively since their foundation - a combined total of 215 major tournament victories between them.

However, considering that, in the history of football, a total of 'only’ 253 major trophies - at both domestic and continental level - have been awarded to Portuguese clubs, it is a truly staggering share that has been won by the so-called Big Three in the nation - beyond that which one may have reasonably expected, even with the knowledge of their historic dominance.

It means that three clubs have won 85% of all the major trophies won by Portuguese clubs since the start of fully recognised Portuguese football back in the early 1920s, be it the Primeira Liga, the Portuguese Cup or League Cup, the now-defunct Campeonato de Portugal, or a European accolade such as the Champions League or Europe League. Super Cups - born domestic and European - are also included in the count.

The other 15% of the major accolades won are then shared between just 14 teams - three of which haven't won anything since 1928, while one club doesn't even exist anymore.

In fact, of all the 14 teams outside the Big Three to win a major trophy, over half - eight - have only ever managed to win one, meaning that, in actual fact, only six other Portuguese football teams outside of Benfica, Porto and Sporting have a plurality of major honours to their name.

Let that sink in. With 253 major awards up for grabs, only half a dozen football clubs outside the country's excessively dominant trio have ever had the luxury of lifting a major trophy on more than one occasion.

Who are the other 14 clubs to have lifted a major trophy?

You may assume that Braga would be the 4th most successful team in Portuguese football history thanks to their sustained status as the 4th best team in the country over the last two decades, but this isn't the case - in fact, there are two other teams thathave had more major tournament success than Braga, namely Boavista - who have an impressive 9 major trophies in their cabinet, including the Primeira Liga trophy from 2001 (which also happens to be their most recent tournament triumph) - and Belenenses, who have won 6, also including Portugal's biggest prize, won all the way back in 1946. Their most recent trophy success came over 3 decades ago, when they won the Portuguese Cup in 1989 - and with the club now toiling in the fourth division of Portuguese football after a historic split occurred within the club leaving Belenenses SAD to take their place in the top flight, their next seems a long, long way away.

However, it is fitting that Boavista and Belenenses are officially the 4th and 5th most successful Portuguese teams in history, as they are, in fact, the only two teams outside of Benfica, Porto and Sporting to have ever won the Portuguese league title in all 87 editions of the competition, with the traditional Big Three winning all 85 of the other Primeira Liga titles up for grabs.

Braga are then the 6th most successful club in Portuguese football, with 6 major trophies earned in their history - last season's Portuguese Cup triumph over Benfica is their most recent, that being their third ever Portuguese Cup victory. Evidently, however, they are yet to win the Primeira Liga, and such a scenario, at this moment in time, still feels like a fantasy more than a realistic ambition.

Meanwhile, Vitoria Setubal - now in the 3rd division of Portuguese football - are then the 7th most successful club in the nation's history with 4 major honours. They are one of just 4 sides (the other three being Benfica, Sporting and Braga) to have ever won both the Portuguese Cup and the Portuguese League Cup. Note that not even FC Porto have managed this feat to date.

Vitoria Guimarães and Académica are then the only other two teams to have won at least two trophies - between them those honours coming between 1939 and 2013. A 74-year span which collected just 4 awards collectively is the perfect illustration of how elusive major tournaments are even for some of the most historic and prestigious clubs in Portugal simply because of the sensational dominance of the Big Three in the land.

There are then 8 teams to have ever won just a single major tournament each - the most recent perhaps being the most sensational, with Desportivo das Aves winning the Portuguese Cup in 2018 by defeating Sporting 2-1. Aves, remarkably a town with a population even smaller than their dinky 8,500-capacity stadium, produced one of the biggest upsets in Portuguese football history to win the biggest cup competition in the land ahead of other such illustrious candidates.

Moreirense are then the only other team to have won a trophy this century, when they lifted the League Cup in 2017.

Leixões, Estrela da Amadora, and Beira-Mar - none of which currently play in the Portuguese Primeira Liga - all won the Portuguese Cup in 1961, 1990 and 1999 respectively.

There are then just three other Portuguese clubs to have won a major honour - and all three were victors in a competition that doesn’t even exist anymore. Olhanense, Maritimo and Carcavelinhos all won the Campeonato de Portugal, the competition which preceded the Primeira Liga in the 1920s. It was so long ago, that Carcavelinhos, the 1928 champions, don’t even exist anymore, having merged with a nearby club to form Atlético Clube de Portugal.

It is perhaps Maritimo, though, that are the most underwhelming club in Portuguese football. A fully established top flight club that have secured plenty of impressive finishes in the Primeira Liga and have represented Portugal in Europe on a handful of occasions would have expected to have at least one major tournament over the last few decades, yet their one and only triumph came nearly 100 years ago in a competition that no longer exists.

Maritimo, spectacularly, have been in the Portuguese top division without suffering relegation for the last 39 years. A sensational record that no team outside of Benfica, Sporting, Porto or Braga comes close to. The next longest-standing top flight team is Vitoria Guimarães, who have only been a Primeira Liga side without interruption since 2007. Maritimo, therefore, together with Braga, are the only other long-standing top division club in Portugal outside the established Big Three. Yet Maritimo have no existing major tournament triumph to their name.