The is the national
Football team of
Portugal and is controlled by the
Portuguese Football Federation .
Portugal has never won any major competition at senior level, but they usually play very attractive
Football and can produce some great performances, playing head-to-head with the world's best national sides. They reached their first major final at (which they hosted) losing to
Greece .
Portugal's best performance yet was in the , in their very first World Cup appearance, when they reached the semifinals and lost only to eventual world champions
England . Led by their legendary player
Eusébio , they put up amazing performances, knocking out previous World Cup champions
Brazil and fighting back from a 3-0 result in the quarterfinals against
North Korea , winning by 5-3. Portugal eventually finished in third place and
Eusébio was considered the best player of the tournament.
The next two times Portugal qualified for the World Cup saw results that to Portugal's supporters were appalling. In
1986 Portugal arrived in
Mexico as semi-finalists of , but a player uprising in
Saltillo (later named ''
Saltillo Affair '') against poor conditions, followed by harsh punishment against key players involved in the uprising, undermined player confidence. Although they did beat group favourites
England in the first game, they lost the remaining games to
Poland and
Morocco (which turned to be Morocco's first win ever in the World Cup).
Months before the start of the , Portugal lost in the
Estádio Do Bessa against
Finland 1-4. This proved to be a preview of things to come, when Portugal (for some the
Dark Horse in the competition) failed miserably to get through the group stage, after losing to the
United States in the opening match 3-2, beating Poland 4-0 but losing 1-0 against
South Korea , in a game where
João Vieira Pinto punched referee Angel Sanchez after being
Sent Off early in the game. Weeks later, it was revealed that before the final match the players argued with federation representatives about prizes. Before the competition, midfielder
Daniel Kenedy was removed from the squad after failing to pass a doping test and replaced with
Hugo Viana , who did not play in the competition. This decision, along with leaving qualifying phase goalkeeper
Ricardo Pereira on the bench in favour of
Vítor Baía , led to much questioning about then-coach
António Oliveira 's choices.
Few national teams have had to live up to greater expectations than the Portugal team from roughly
1994 to
2004 . The Portugal under-20 national team won two successive
FIFA World Youth Championship s in
1989 and
1991 with a virtual galaxy of stars, among them midfielders
Luís Figo and
Rui Costa and forward
João Vieira Pinto ; these stars were dubbed the ''golden generation''. However, they were never able to transfer their success at youth level to ultimate victory at senior level. The remaining members of the "golden generation", along with other players that appeared at the highest level after the 2002 World Cup (such as
Maniche , the brazilian-born
Deco ,
Ricardo Carvalho ,
Miguel and
Paulo Ferreira ) and younger talent such as
Cristiano Ronaldo , finally led Portugal to its first-ever senior-level final at . Portugal lost 1-0 to
Greece in the final. Their only win in any international competition at senior level remains the
1995 SkyDome Cup in
Canada .
The team has proven itself equally capable of mediocre performances against inferior teams. On
October 9 ,
2004 , Portugal suffered a humiliating 2-2 draw against
Liechtenstein in a qualifier. The Liechtenstein team, playing at home, had never earned a point in its previous 20 World Cup qualifiers, and Portugal blew a 2-0 halftime lead. The Portuguese media savaged the team after the draw; one
Lisbon paper called the team "Europe's Laughingstock." The team took out its frustrations four days later with a 7-1 demolition of
Russia , the largest defeat ever for the Russian side since the demise of the
Soviet Union .
On
October 8 ,
2005 , Portugal secured its place in the with a closer-than-expected 2-1 home win in
Aveiro against the same Liechtenstein team. This time, Portugal fell behind 1-0 at halftime, but came back to avoid an even greater embarrassment.
- 1960 to 1980 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1984 - Semifinals
- 1988 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1992 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1996 - Quarterfinals
- 2000 - Semifinals
- 2004 - Runners-up
; Early stars
# ''Selecção das Quinas'' refers to the five shields ("Team of the
Escutcheon s") or the five dots inside them ("Team of the
Bezants ") in the
Portuguese Flag , used until the 70s as the shirt badge.
