Winning Strategies for Betting on Portuguese Football

As millions of football fans around the globe have found out to their pleasure, outside the most high-profile leagues is a world of football waiting to be discovered that offers as much quality, excitement and unpredictability as the likes of the English, Spanish or Italian leagues.

Such is the case of Portugal’s Primeira Liga, currently called the Bwin Liga owing to sponsorship. And as well as the enjoyment of following football in Portugal for the love of the sport itself, it is also a league that provides plenty of enticing betting opportunities to spice up the viewing even further, which you can find here. Read on to learn more. 

Top-heavy league

Before delving into the league head-first with your wallet open, it is worth noting some characteristics peculiar to Portugal’s top flight in relation to other leagues.

One of the most important aspects is the fact the top three teams are head and shoulders above all the rest in terms of quality. One need only look at the history of the Primeira Liga to back up this affirmation. Only twice in almost a century of history has the national championship been won by a team outside of Benfica, Porto or Sporting.

The historically dominant trio of clubs, known as the Três Grandes (Big Three), are almost certain to finish in the top three positions every season. The only club who has been able to barge their way into the triumvirate occasionally in recent history is Braga. The success of the northern club has even led some supporters to suggest the Big Three should be now called the Big Four, albeit it is mainly Braga fans who argue this point!

So what does this mean in terms of betting strategy? The most obvious take-away is that if you are betting on the winner of the championship, do not even think about any club other than the traditional contenders. And this millennium it has been Porto and Benfica who have dominated, dividing the right to call themselves national champions 18 times running up until 2020/21, when Sporting finally finished top of the pile after a long barren spell.

But with the brilliant young coach Rúben Amorim who led the Lions to that triumph still at the helm of the Lisbon club, it is fair to say that all three clubs are genuine contenders to become champions.

Bucking the trend

More pertinently for regular bettors, it is extremely common for all three big teams to win every weekend. Unless they are of course playing against each other or have a match-up against Braga, a three-way accumulator on victories for Porto, Benfica and Sporting could be a winner when it comes to a football betting strategy.

More lucrative, however, is to try and spot when one of the three will slip up. Betting on two of the Big Three to win and the other to draw or lose, will see the odds, and subsequently the potential winnings, shoot up.

So how can you spot these potential banana skins for Portugal’s more favoured clubs? Regular watchers of Portuguese football can use their insider knowledge to good effect, but to summarise, here are some of the most difficult match-ups for the Big Three:

•         Beware the islands!

Portugal’s top flight usually contains two or three teams outside of the mainland, located in either Madeira or the Azores.

Some people claim it is in the air of these Atlantic destinations, others that it is linked to the need for a flight, but what is certain is that even when the likes of Marítimo (Madeira) or Santa Clara (Azores) are struggling, they often cause big problems to visitors from the mainland, including the Big Three. A case in point can be seen from this season when Santa Clara took points of Porto despite having a poor season.

•         Focus on Cup games

Portugal’s biggest clubs focus heavily on league play and European competition, meaning that they often rotate wildly when it comes to Cup matches. Add in the fact that for any team outside the top flight, a visit from such prestigious opposition is the talk of the town for weeks on end, leaving the squad super-motivated and more often than not playing above themselves.

This season we again have two good examples, with Caldas de Rainha from the third tier taking the all-conquering Benfica to penalties in the Portuguese Cup, and Varzim, also in the third level of the Portuguese football pyramid knocking Sporting out of the same competition.

Indeed, betting on a cup upset involving the Big Three has more probability of coming up trumps that a surprise in the league – with the added bonus that you will get better odds!

•         European hangover

Another good strategy for trying to spot when one of the Big Three will slip up is to focus on their European campaigns. Portugal’s top clubs overperform in continental competition on a remarkably regular basis, and part of the reason is that they put absolutely everything into these competitions, given that selling their players is an important part of their financial models, and there is no better “shop window” than the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League.

But this policy often comes at a cost in games prior to or immediately after big European clashes. It is common to see Porto, Benfica or Sporting pick up a poor result either because the clubs in question are not fully focused on the domestic task at hand with such a high-profile match on the horizon, or because of the huge mental and physical efforts expended in fighting for a positive result against powerful opposition.

Taking advantage of this somewhat hidden vulnerability, usually not reflected in the odds, can be another advantageous betting strategy.

So there you have it. Gamble in moderation, good luck, and in the case of Portuguese football, even if your hunches do not always pay off, you are sure to be compensated by the excellent football you get to see.