Is the Portuguese Primeira Liga getting stronger?

The Portuguese Primeira Liga is now, officially, the 6th strongest national league in all of Europe after leapfrogging the Russian Premier League in the UEFA Coefficient rankings for the first time in 3 years.

It’s an excellent achievement for Portugal, sitting above other highly competent footballing nations, that themselves boast highly reputable football clubs, by quite some distance. The likes of the Netherlands, Ukraine, Turkey and Belgium, in addition to Russia, are all well behind Portugal in the current rankings, and Portugal could even have their eyes on catching France in 5th in the next two or three years if they have more strong showings by their clubs on the European stage over the coming seasons.

And yet, despite Portugal undisputedly being one of the best leagues in all of world football, the fact of the matter is that, outside of the country - and quite often within it too - it is still viewed in a poor light amongst fans of the beautiful game.

Indeed, one of the terms often thrown about, almost exclusively in an unprompted fashion, by casual football fans with a feeling of fallacious arrogance is “Farmer’s League.” A statement so devoid of meaning that some simply choose to associate it with any league outside that in which they follow religiously.

The advent of social media, and it’s almost exponential rise in popularity, has only increased the regularity in which the term is used, and it has become a phrase so engrained within some people’s minds that even the likes of the Spanish La Liga or the German Bundesliga, officially the 2nd and 4th best leagues in Europe, are deemed to be so-called ‘Farmer’s Leagues’ to fixated fans who have never taken the opportunity to indulge in observing the footballing exploits of other domestic club competitions.

But Portuguese football fans are under no illusion that the league, overall, is not comparable to the likes of the English Premier League. First and foremost, there simply isn’t the unfathomable funding available to the average Portuguese club to compete with clubs even fighting for relegation in the likes of England, Spain and Germany. Portuguese football teams are immediately at a considerable disadvantage, and it is unquestionable that the league itself is very far behind the quality of the top 4 leagues in the continent.

But knowing that the Portuguese league boasts considerably less quality overall compared to the likes of La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga is very different to dismissing and disregarding the Portuguese league in its entirety.

And could it be the case that the Portuguese league, overall, is actually getting stronger? You can certainly make the case for it.

Take a look at the Portuguese sides in Europe, for example. It is indisputable that the likes of Porto, Benfica and Sporting massively underachieved this season, none of them even making it past the Europa League round of 32. It marked the first time since the 1998-99 campaign that no Portuguese team remained in European competition beyond the month of February, bringing a twenty year record to a stunning end.

However, while the traditional Big Three faltered, Vitoria Guimaraes and SC Braga pulled off a stunning European campaign, perhaps Guimaraes in particular. To reach the Europa League group stage was in itself a marvellous achievement for the club, but it was their exploits at the Europa League proper that were particularly impressive.

Arsenal fans would have undoubtedly been anticipating two easy victories over the Portuguese outfit, who are quite possibly relatively unknown across the continent. Guimaraes, however, had other ideas, and led Arsenal twice in London, winning 1-2 until the 80th minute, before two Pepe free-kicks ultimately sealed Guimaraes’ fate as they lost 3-2 in the cruellest fashion. To come that close to beating a side with a considerably larger budget, though, was truly exceptional.

If that wasn’t enough, they then went on to earn a point against the Gunners in the reverse fixture in Portugal, a late Bruno Duarte goal earning a point for the Portuguese outfit, before Guimaraes then earned a stunning 3-2 victory over German giants Eintracht Frankfurt on the final day of the group campaign. Safe to say they surprised one or two people in the tournament, and proved that Portuguese football does have some quality.

Domestically, though, they only finished 7th, behind Rio Ave and Famalicao alongside the four biggest clubs in the country. Which makes you wonder; if only the 7th best team in Portugal could go toe-to-toe with some highly reputable clubs, what could those above them achieve? And could those just below them also compete on the European stage? Most would say the likes of Santa Clara and Moreirense would have no chance of upstaging Europa League perennials, but maybe that is, in fact, a fallacy.

Braga also performed wonders in the Europa League. They failed to reach the group stage in the 2018-19 season, knocked out on away goals to Zorya - but this year, they made it through to the group stage, beating Spartak Moscow and Brondby en route, and not only proved competitive, but actually topped a very difficult group containing Wolves, Besiktas and Slovan Bratislava without losing a game. In fact, they beat Besiktas both home and away, and earned an impressive 0-1 win over Wolves in England before earning an exciting 3-3 draw in the reverse fixture.

The bottom half teams in the Primeira Liga earned more points against the Big Four than we have seen in a decade

But of course, that’s a very small sample size. Just two teams proved that, outside of the traditional Big Three, Portuguese clubs can compete with some highly reputable sides in the continent.

If we therefore look at the bottom half of the Primeira Liga table then and see how many points these sides, as a collective, earned against the top 4 clubs in the country, we get an intriguing picture.

The graph below illustrates this, showing the percentage of combined points dropped by Benfica, Porto, Sporting and Braga against bottom half teams each season over the last 12 years - and this year proved to be the highest, with the Big Four dropping over 25% of the points on offer against sides that finished in the bottom half.

Here's what makes this stat even more incredible. Over the past decade, we've seen Braga finish outside the top 4 on a couple of occasions, and Sporting finish as low as 7th. Yet it was in this season, where Benfica, Porto, Braga and Sporting all finished inside the top 4, that they dropped more points against teams in the bottom half of the table than any other year.

That all four of them did so only further suggests that it is not a case of the top sides getting worse, but that the lower sides in the league are getting better. What are the chances that all four sides drop so many points uncharacteristically in the same season, and yet still finish in positions 1 to 4?

If we then look at the total percentage of points earned by the teams that finished in positions 1 to 4 in the Primeira Liga standings over the last few years, we get a similarly telling graph. That’s because, for the first time in 9 years, the top 4 sides combined earned fewer than 70% of the points available to them:

It’s quite an impressive statistic, and shows just how competitive the league seemed to be compared to previous seasons. But is this a one-off season, or is it a sign of things to come?

To study this, perhaps it’s better to go further back in time and see what the overall trend looks like. To do this, we should look only at the top 3, as ultimately Braga have only been able to compete with the traditional Big Three for the last decade.

This graph shows the percentage of points earned by the sides that finished between 1st and 3rd in each season since 1995, not including the most recent 2019-20 season:

As you can see, there is a clear positive correlation, with the top 3 sides generally earning a larger percentage of the points on offer as time has gone on. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, for example, the top 3 were only really earning around 70% of the points available to them, and earned well under 65% in the 2004-05 season. However, in recent years, that number has consistently been upwards of 75%, and above 80% on more than a couple of occasions.

If we now add in the current season, it becomes clear to see how unexpected this season was for the top 3 sides, dropping far more points than we’ve become accustomed to:

There is therefore no doubt that this was a far more competitive season in the Portuguese top flight than we are used to seeing. The big question is whether that is because the top sides were worse than usual, or because the lower sides are getting better - and that can certainly be debated. But you would think that it is almost certainly, at least in part, due to the latter.

We now wait to see whether this will prove to be an outlier season, or whether the upward trend in the dominance of the top few sides in the league continues to be reversed.