Estoril Praia host Famalicão to open the 2026/27 season. Sporting play Saturday in Amadora, Porto host Alverca on Sunday, and Benfica's opener is still awaiting confirmation.

By Vasco Almada

Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Rodrigo Buinho, 18, from Estremoz, took individual gold at the European Junior and Young Rider Championship in France. Manuel Maria Pereira finished third and the squad took the team title.

Twenty-two nations rode at Jullianges, in central France, and by the end of the European Junior and Young Rider Endurance Championship the Portuguese flag had gone up twice. Portugal took the team title and the individual gold in the same weekend. Neither had ever been won before. The individual belongs to Rodrigo Buinho, an 18-year-old from Estremoz. Manuel Maria Pereira completed the podium in third, which means two of the three best young endurance…

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Centre-back Eduardo Quaresma extended his Sporting contract to June 2031, with an €80 million release clause and a step up the wage structure.

Sporting have tidied up one of the more predictable items on their summer list: Eduardo Quaresma has signed through to June 2031. His previous deal ran to 2028, so that is three extra years — and more significant than the date, a release clause that now sits at €80 million. Eighty million for a centre-back raised at Alcochete says less about the market than about what the club thinks it is holding. Quaresma also moved up the squad's wage hierarchy, which…

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FC Porto won the 2026 Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira 1-0 against Torreense in Coimbra, with a goal from Froholdt. It is the club's 25th Supertaça and the first trophy of the 2026/27 season.

It finished on the smallest possible margin and the biggest possible note: 1-0 to FC Porto, a Froholdt goal, and the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira staying in Coimbra just long enough to change hands. Torreense, who had come to the Estádio Cidade de Coimbra to ruin the party, got close. Not close enough. The Dane solved the thing the game was really asking for, which was patience. Francesco Farioli's side held the ball for most of the night, found very…

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UEFA said it has lost confidence in Gianni Infantino less than 24 hours after FIFA backed down on plans to sell a commercial stake in the World Cup, deepening the leadership crisis in world football.

UEFA did the thing it almost never does in writing: it published a statement saying it no longer trusts the president of FIFA. And it did so less than 24 hours after Gianni Infantino abandoned the plan to sell a commercial stake in the World Cup — the same plan that had half of world football up in arms. There is no generous reading of the text. UEFA wrote that FIFA's current leadership has lost not only European football's confidence but that of many…

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In their last run-out before the league, Sporting beat Nottingham Forest 4-1 at the Algarve Stadium, with goals from Gonçalo Inácio, Doumbia and a Rafael Nel brace.

Pre-season friendlies count for nothing, everybody knows that. Then you get an afternoon like Friday's at the Algarve Stadium, where an academy kid puts two past a Premier League side, and suddenly they count for a little. 4-1 to Sporting. It started badly: Igor Jesus put Forest ahead inside two minutes, which in a friendly is usually the prologue to a long afternoon. It was not. Gonçalo Inácio headed the equaliser on 14 minutes and the game changed hands…

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Benjamin Mendy auctioned his official replica of the 2018 World Cup trophy along with his winner's ring. The replica drew 38 bids and sold for €54,000; the former France international stood by it.

Some trophies live in a cabinet forever and some go under the hammer. Benjamin Mendy picked the second option, auctioning his official replica of the 2018 World Cup he won with France in Moscow, along with the winner's ring FIFA hands to the champions. €54,000, after 38 bids. The auction closed on 25 July, days after the 2026 World Cup finished, which helped pull in attention — and criticism. No, and plenty of people skipped that distinction. The original…

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Souleymane Faye leaves Sporting for Lorient on loan, with a purchase option set at €6.5m and the French club covering the Senegal international's wages in full.

Souleymane Faye is off to Brittany. Sporting and Lorient have agreed a loan deal for the Senegalese attacking midfielder, with a purchase option set at €6.5m and the French club picking up his wages in full for the duration. €6.5m. The maths is easy to read: Sporting paid a little over six million to Granada in January, so triggering the option would return the investment with a thin but positive margin, and with no wage bill in between. Minutes. The…

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The Court of Arbitration for Sport partly upheld Mykhailo Mudryk's appeal, and the Chelsea winger is free to return immediately after more than eighteen months out.

Mykhailo Mudryk is free to play again with immediate effect. The Court of Arbitration for Sport partly upheld the Chelsea winger's appeal against a four-year doping ban and set the sanction at time already served, which means it is over. The 25-year-old Ukraine international has not played a competitive match since November 2024. He was provisionally suspended by the Football Association the following month after a sample returned an adverse finding for…

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The Portuguese centre-back flew to England to sign a five-year deal at Bournemouth. The move is worth about 25 million euros plus five in add-ons, and leaves Marco Silva short at the back.

The whole thing was waiting on one result, and that result landed on Thursday night. The moment Benfica saw off St. Gallen and secured their Europa League run, Antonio Silva's exit came unstuck: the 22-year-old centre-back flew to England on Friday to complete a move to Bournemouth. The figures doing the rounds point to roughly 25 million euros fixed, with another five tied to performance targets. The contract at the English club runs five years, to 2031,…

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Pavlidis scored four at the Luz and Lenglet added a fifth as Benfica turned the tie around 6-2 on aggregate. The third qualifying round against Hearts is on 6 and 13 August.

A week after leaving Switzerland with a 2-1 defeat on their record, Benfica settled the tie in about three quarters of an hour and with essentially one player. Pavlidis scored four at the Luz, Lenglet made it five, and the 5-0 sent St. Gallen home 6-2 on aggregate. Early, which is always the easiest way. Pavlidis opened the scoring on 11 minutes and took the nerves out of the stadium before they could settle. The second half belonged entirely to the Greek…

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Benfica have confirmed the signing of Brazilian centre-back Gabriel Índio, 18, from Athletic Club for around four million euros, on a contract to 2031.

Some signings wait on a signature. Others wait on a birthday. This one was the second kind. Benfica have confirmed the arrival of Gabriel Índio, a Brazilian centre-back who turned 18 on 28 July and who, that same day, became legally free to move to Europe. The club put it out that afternoon across every official channel. Around four million euros to Athletic Club, the Minas Gerais side that finished his development. In Brazil they celebrated it like a…

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Leaked audio of Pedro Proença criticising Portuguese refereeing has set the game alight. Referees refused the meeting at Cidade do Futebol and the FPF president says the clips are distorted.

Pedro Proença asked for the meeting himself. He rang the Portuguese referees' association on Tuesday night, set it for ten the next morning at Cidade do Futebol — and not a single referee showed up. It went ahead anyway, online, with association president José Borges and a few other officials. From the men in black, nobody. The excerpts circulating online catch the current head of the Portuguese football federation speaking very freely about the state of…

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FIFA plans to create FIFA Forward Enterprise and raise up to 4.2 billion dollars from private investors. UEFA has rejected it, Brussels is watching, and Portugal co-hosts the 2030 World Cup.

Some football arguments get settled on the pitch. Others get settled in rooms full of lawyers. This one is firmly the second kind, and it still matters to anyone who loves the game. It is a new company, wholly owned by FIFA, that gathers the governing body's commercial rights in one place. The plan is to open part of that company to private investors and raise up to 4.2 billion dollars in the process. The stakes on offer would be minority and…

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The 2026 Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira kicks off on 1 August at 20:15 at the Estádio Cidade de Coimbra, live on RTP1. FC Porto and Torreense open the 2026/27 season.

The 2026/27 season officially starts on Saturday, and it starts with a fixture nobody would have written this way a year ago. On one side, FC Porto, national champions. On the other, Torreense, who won the Taça de Portugal and turned an entire season into the kind of story people retell for years. Saturday 1 August, at 20:15. The federation and the clubs confirmed the date and time in early July, and the venue is neutral: the Estádio Cidade de Coimbra,…

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