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Portuguese Liga

The Portuguese Liga (), currently named Liga ZON Sagres after their main sponsors, is the top tier in Portuguese club football. Its current champion is Sport Lisboa e Benfica. It also has a European ranking of sixth by UEFA, as of 2011. The Liga ZON Sagres is presently contested by 16 clubs each season, but only five of them have won the title. Currently in its 76th edition (counting four provisional championships in the 1930s) the competition is dominated by the nicknamed " Big Three": ( Futebol Clube do Porto, Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Sporting Clube de Portugal), who have a total of 74 titles, with Clube de Futebol "Os Belenenses" and Boavista Futebol Clube winning the other two.

History

Before the Portuguese football reform of 1938, an experimental competition on a round-basis was already being held — the Primeira Liga (Premier League) and the winners of that competition were named "League champions". Despite that, a Portuguese Championship in a knock-out cup format was the most popular and defined the "Portuguese champion". " is always present in the equipment of the Portuguese champion.]] Then, with the reform, a round-robin basis competition was implemented as the most important of the calendar and began defining the Portuguese champion. From 1938–2000, the name Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Divisão (National Championship of the First Division), or just Primeira Divisão (First Division), was used. When the Portuguese League for Professional Football took control of the two nationwide leagues in 1999, it was renamed Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Liga (Premier League National Championship), or simply Primeira Liga (Premier League).

Sponsored names

Galp Energia acquired the naming rights to the league in 2002, titling the division SuperLiga Galp Energia. A four year deal with the Austrian sports betting web portal bwin was announced on 18 August 2005 amid questioning by the other gambling authorities in Portugal (the Santa Casa da Misericórdia and the Portuguese Casinos Association), who claimed to hold the exclusive rights to legal gambling games in Portuguese national territory. After holding the name Liga betandwin.com for the 2005–06 season,http://www.lpfp.pt/default.aspx?SqlPage=content_noticias&CpContentId=286631 the name was changed to BWINLIGA in July 2006.http://www.lpfp.pt/default.aspx?SqlPage=content_noticias&CpContentId=286890 From the 2008–09 season, the league has been be named Liga Sagres due to sponsorship from Sagres beer. In 2010, they on only renewed the sponsorship from Sagres, but also got the sponsorship from ZON Multimédia, the leading pay-tv services provider.

Competition

From the 2006–07 season on, there are 16 clubs in the Portuguese Liga, down from 18 in the previous seasons. During the course of a season, each club plays all teams twice — once at their home stadium and once at their opponent's — for a total of 30 games. At the end of each season, the two lowest placed teams are relegated to the Liga de Honra, and the top two teams from Liga de Honra are promoted to the Portuguese Liga.

European qualification

For the 2008–09 season, the top two teams in the Portuguese Liga ( Porto and Sporting CP, first and second, respectively) qualified for the UEFA Champions League. The Champion (first place finish) goes directly into the group phase of the competition, with the runner-up (second place finish) entering the competition at the third qualifying round, and must survive a two-legged knockout tie in order to enter the group phase. The teams classified in third, fourth and fifth enter the UEFA Cup together with the winner of the Cup of Portugal. If the winner of the Cup of Portugal is already qualified for the Champions League, or would be qualified for the UEFA Cup by its league position, the runner-up will occupy the spot in the UEFA Cup. If the runner-up is also qualified for European competition through its league position, the spot is given to the sixth-placed team in the Liga. The sixth-placed team is allowed to play in the UEFA Intertoto Cup, but when it plays in the UEFA Cup because of the situation above, then the spot is taken by the seventh-placed team.

Current clubs in Portuguese Liga Sagres (2010–11)

Names in bold are the colloquial names of the clubs.

Television

Portugal

Within Portugal, SportTV holds rights to broadcast both first and second division matches, through their Premium Channels, SportTV 1, SportTV 2, and in HD on SportTV HD. All clubs negotiate individually with the channel. One game a week is broadcasted on free-to-air television in a contract deal between SportTV and TVI.

International Broadcast

Official match ball

UEFA ranking

National League Ranking for the 2010–11 season of the European Cups. (Previous season rank in italics) (see UEFA coefficients full list for more information)

International honours by Liga players

Attendance

Since the beginning of the league, there are three clubs with an attendance much higher than the others: Benfica, Porto and Sporting CP. They have also the biggest stadiums in Portugal, with more than 50,000 seats. Other clubs, such as Vitória de Guimarães and Sporting de Braga, also have good attendances. Académica de Coimbra, Vitória de Setúbal, Belenenses, and Marítimo are historical clubs, from the biggest Portuguese cities, and have also many supporters. However, they do not have big attendances nowadays. Their stadiums have between 10,000 and 30,000 seats. The 2009–10 season saw an average attendance by club:

List of champions and top scorers

Performance by club

Portuguese Liga All-Time Ranking

Last updated following the 2009–10 season The clubs highlighted in green play in the Liga in the 2010/11 season. The clubs highlighted in red play in the Liga de Honra in the 2010/11 season. The clubs highlighted in grey no longer exist because they have been disestablished or have been merged into another club. Remaining clubs play in lower competitions. A win is worth three points for all clubs.

Records

Other records

  • In 1972–73, Benfica won the Portuguese Liga without any defeat (28 wins and 2 ties) (96.7% efficiency), in a time where victory was awarded 2 points. This was the only undefeated Champion in History.
  • In 1977–78, Porto won the Portuguese Liga with 51 points in 30 games (85% efficiency), in a time where victory was awarded 2 points. The same amount of points as Benfica, who had ended the championship without any defeat. Porto won based on better goal difference.
  • In 2002–03, Porto won the Portuguese Liga with 86 points in 34 games, the most ever obtained (84.3% efficiency), in a time where victory was awarded 3 points.
Curiously, with this point system, Benfica would have also scored 86 points (95.56% efficiency) in 1972–73, but with 4 games less.
  • In 2004–05, Benfica won the Portuguese Liga with just 65 points (63.7% efficiency).
Historically, this efficiency would not have been enough for second place in any of the previous years.
  • In 2009–10, Benfica won the Portuguese Liga with 76 points in 30 games (84,44% efficiency), the most ever obtained, with 16 teams and victory being awarded 3 points.

See also

References

External links

"green air" © 2007 - Ingo Malchow, Webdesign Neustrelitz
This article based upon the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Liga, the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Further informations available on the list of authors and history: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portuguese_Liga&action=history
presented by: Ingo Malchow, Mirower Bogen 22, 17235 Neustrelitz, Germany