Liga NOS - A league on the rise producing genius has become a shopping center for European heavyweights

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Even in the biggest club competition of them all, the UEFA Champions League, the Portuguese clubs are starting to show they aren't just pushovers.


Back at the start of the 2008/09 season, the Liga NOS is ranked tenth in the UEFA coefficient League rankings, below The Russian Premier League, Ukrainian Premier League, Dutch Eredivisie and the Romanian Liga I.

Three years later, they moved into the top five, leapfrogging the leagues mentioned earlier, and the French Ligue un, are were occupying the fifth spot at the time.

The projection in rank was thanks to FC Porto's success in the UEFA Europa League in 2011, a season where three Portuguese teams reached the semi final of the competition.

The losing finalists, Braga, defeated Benfica on away goals in the semi final while Porto dominated and beat Spanish side, Villarreal 7-4 on aggregate before going on to beat Braga 1-0 in the final thanks to a Radamel Falcao strike.

They maintained the top five status until the 2016/17 season, when the Ligue un move above them again and since then, they've been out of the top five.

In the last seaon's Champions League, they awere represented by more teams than the Ligue un, albeit they trailed them in the UEFA ranking.

This came to be after Monaco lost in the playoff round to Shakhtar Donesk, meaning only Lille and PSG were qualified. Benfica won in the playoffs and joined Porto and Sporting CP in the Champions League group stages.

And in the competition proper, two teams each from the two leagues made it out of the group stages but both Lille and PSG were eliminated in the round of 16.

The the Portuguese sides, Sporting CP were eliminated by Manchester City in the round of 16 but Benfica managed to go one better, beating Ajax in the round of 16 before losing out to Liverpool in the quarters.

In the season before, PSG's semi final run was one better than Porto's quarter final exit, which came in the hands of the eventual champions, Chelsea.


The margin between the two leagues in the UEFA coefficient ranking is not much and even now that the Ligue un parade some of the big names in the sport, in the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar Junior and Kylian Mbappé, a place in the top five is not well secured.

PSG are not helped by the other teams in the French top-flight, whom are not as competitive as the other teams in the other top five leagues.

Liga NOS teams have also evolved in their style of play. They now try to play liquid football and the chemistry among their players help to frustrate opposition players, who might be of better quality.

Even when losing, most times it is the quality of the opponents in the final third that decides those games. They always look dangerous and rarely sit back to absorb pressure, but take the game to their opponent.

The recent rise of the Liga Portugal has also coincides with the emergence of talented players from the league and most of the big clubs in Europe now choose to scout players from there.

In recent times, the likes of Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix, Hector Herrera, Bruno Fernandes, Ruben Dias, Casemiro, Ederson Moraes, Nuno Mendes and more have been signed from the league by top teams.

This year, Luiz Diaz, Darwin Nuñez, Fabio Vieira and now Vitinha has been snapped up by top teams in Europe whilst more is also expected as Wolves and Fulham battle it out for the signature of Joao Palhinha.

The resurgence of the Liga Portugal has made their teams become ones to watch out for in all three European competitions and the forthcoming season beholds promise form them even though there are lots of outgoings, a lot more stars are bound to be raised.


Author: Kehinde Hassan Afolabi

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