UEFA divides a country's European points by the number of clubs it entered. Portugal entered five, Spain entered eight, and on Thursday night that arithmetic flipped the standings.

By Vasco Almada

Chart: Tugadaily · UEFA data

Both Portuguese clubs won the home leg of their European play-offs on Thursday. Rafa, Barreiro and Pavlidis scored at the Luz, Pau Víctor and Diego Rodrigues did the job in Braga, and both return legs are away on 27 August.

Thursday went the way both Portuguese clubs needed it to. Benfica took Aarhus apart 3-1 at the Estádio da Luz, and Sporting de Braga beat Austria Wien 2-0 at home. Neither tie is finished. Both are now leaning heavily one way. Benfica settled theirs early. Rafa scored inside two minutes, Leandro Barreiro made it two on 31, and Vangelis Pavlidis converted a penalty in first-half stoppage time — the club has posted the goal on its own channel. Sebastian…

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From the 2026/27 season the championship streams on Disney+ in most international markets and on ESPN+ in the United States. Dazn has confirmed it holds Portuguese rights only until the end of this season. António Félix da Costa is still on the grid.

Anyone in Portugal who follows Formula E on Dazn will be changing apps. From the 2026/27 season, the FIA world championship streams on Disney+ across most international markets, Portugal among them, and alongside ESPN+ in the United States. Dazn, which held the Portuguese rights, has confirmed it carries the series only to the end of this season. The deal is multi-year and spans 144 territories. Subscribers are promised the full race weekend: practice,…

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The national team start on Friday in the Azeri capital. It is only Portugal's second appearance at a European Championship, and Pool C also holds the Netherlands and Belgium.

Portugal's women's volleyball team begin their European Championship on Friday in Baku, against Azerbaijan. It is only the second time the side has reached the tournament and the first in seven years, and the opener falls straight against one of the countries hosting it. The final stage is spread across four nations, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Turkey and Azerbaijan, with 24 teams in four pools. The top four in each group go through to the round of 16.…

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Porto sold the registration rights and 50% of the economic rights for €25m guaranteed plus €2m in bonuses. Roma holds options on the rest, Porto holds a put option at the same price, and the club has written a €50m floor into the deal.

Rodrigo Mora has been a Roma player since Wednesday morning. Porto confirmed it at 09:30, and unusually for this kind of announcement the club set out the whole structure of the deal, which is where it gets interesting. What changed hands was the player's registration and 50% of his economic rights, for €27m: €25m guaranteed, plus up to €2m in bonuses tied to sporting conditions. Half the player. The other half is still Porto's.

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The Portuguese swimmer medalled in the 100m and 50m freestyle at the Paris European Championships, finishing 17 hundredths off his own national record.

Two races, two podiums, two days running. Marco Meneses left the Olympic Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis with a pair of bronze medals — the 100m freestyle on Saturday, the 50m freestyle on Sunday — according to the round-up published by the Portuguese Sports Confederation. In the shorter race he stopped the clock at 26.93 seconds. His national record over the distance stands at 26.76. Seventeen hundredths, then: the gap between a good day and a historic…

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First leg of the Europa League play-off, 20:00 in Lisbon, with the return in Denmark on 27 August. The Danish side dropped out of Champions League qualifying days ago, and the two clubs have only met twice before.

Benfica play the first of the two legs that decide whether they reach the Europa League phase on Thursday. Aarhus come to the Estádio da Luz at 20:00, with the return set for 27 August in Denmark. The club's official fixture calendar confirms the order: home first, away second. The Danish side arrived here sideways. AGF Aarhus were in Champions League qualifying and went out to Sabah of Azerbaijan, which dropped them into this Europa League play-off. They…

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Portugal left the European athletics championships with three medals — Pedro Pichardo's triple jump silver, plus bronzes for Fatoumata Diallo and Patrícia Silva — and four national records that nobody medalled for.

Pedro Pichardo opened the Birmingham triple jump final with 17.76 metres. He took two more attempts, improved on neither, and then waved away his fourth, fifth and sixth. He watched the rest of it from the side. The silver held. Italy's Andy Díaz took gold by 39 centimetres with 18.15 metres, an Italian record and the fastest mark in the world this year. Andrea Dallavalle, also Italian, completed the podium on 17.37. For Pichardo this is an exact repeat…

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The Anicolor-Campicarn rider closed out the 87th edition on Porto's Avenida dos Aliados ahead of his own team-mate, the two-time defending champion. Rui Oliveira took the final stage from Maia to Porto.

Alexis Guérin has won the 87th Volta a Portugal. The Frenchman rode onto Porto's Avenida dos Aliados on Sunday 1 minute and 2 seconds clear of Artem Nych, and the detail that gives the result its flavour is that Nych rides for the same team and had won the previous two editions. Pedro Silva of Feira dos Sofás-Boavista completed the podium at 4 minutes 30. The closing 136.9-kilometre stage from Maia to Porto went to Rui Oliveira of UAE Team Emirates-XRG.…

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The GNR spokesman set out how the mobile escort was deployed at the moment of the collision, why no officer was posted at that junction, and why no criminal charge is expected for now.

A day after Finlay Tarling died on stage eight of the Volta a Portugal, the GNR set out how its officers were deployed on the road where the British rider was hit. The first thing it did was correct the version that spread within hours of the crash. The van was not driving against the traffic, said Lieutenant-Colonel Carlos Canatário, the force's spokesman. It was in the right-hand lane, on its own side. It was travelling in the opposite direction to the…

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Stage eight was neutralised into Fafe with no podium and no winner. Stage nine runs from Paredes to the top of Senhora da Graça, a climb the race takes twice on the same day.

The Volta a Portugal went back on the road this afternoon. The race rolled out of Paredes after a moment of tribute at the start line, and stage nine of the 87th edition is running as the route always had it. For anyone picking the race up midway, the reason needs stating. On Friday, Finlay Tarling died during stage eight. The 19-year-old British rider, of NSN Development Team, was hit by a car that came onto the closed route in the opposite direction…

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The race organisers and the Portuguese Cycling Federation confirmed the death of the NSN Development Team rider. Portugal's GNR says he had dropped off the back of the peloton when a light goods vehicle travelling against the race hit him head-on on the EN306 at Arcozelo, Ponte de Lima.

Finlay Tarling was 19 and riding his first Volta a Portugal. He died on Friday during the eighth stage, between Melgaço and Fafe, and Portugal's oldest bike race turned from a day of sport into a day of mourning inside a few minutes. The Volta organisers and the Portuguese Cycling Federation put their names to a joint statement confirming the death of the British rider from NSN Development Team following a serious accident during the stage. The race was…

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We counted them edition by edition. Camila Rebelo's silver in Paris is only the seventh Portuguese medal in a century of European long-course championships, and the official split sheet shows she swam the fastest last 50 metres in the final.

Camila Rebelo left Paris with silver in the 200m backstroke and a national record of 2:07.62. Good news on its own terms. How good only becomes clear once you count the others. So we counted. We went through all 38 editions of the European long-course swimming championships, from the first in 1926, and added up the Portuguese medals one edition at a time, pool swimming only, no open water, no diving, no short course. The answer is seven. Seven medals in a…

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A goalless draw against Dinamo Minsk on Bulgarian soil, added to the 1-0 from the first leg, carried Braga into the last round before the league phase. The Austrians visit on 20 August and host the return on the 27th.

Braga did not need to score to go through. Thursday's goalless draw with Dinamo Minsk, played on Bulgarian soil, was enough to protect the 1-0 from the first leg and book the last qualifying round before the Conference League proper. Waiting for them is Austria Wien, who settled their own tie with Beitar Jerusalem. The Austrian club has already opened travel bookings for the trip to Braga, which pins the dates down: first leg at the Pedreira on 20 August,…

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The third qualifying round second leg kicks off at 7.45pm on Thursday in Edinburgh. Whoever comes through faces a two-legged play-off on 20 and 27 August for a place in the league phase.

Six-one from the first leg makes Thursday a formality, but it is a formality that still has to be played. Benfica are at Tynecastle Park in Edinburgh on Thursday, kick-off 7.45pm — the same clock time in Lisbon and in Scotland. The tie was effectively settled at the Estádio da Luz on 6 August, when Benfica put six past Hearts. Getting there was messier: they lost 2-1 away to St Gallen in the previous round before winning the return 5-0.

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