Portugal‘s women’s team have only been in existence since 1981 — four years before Cristiano Ronaldo was born — and for many of those years, they were neglected and disrespected. But fast forward to 2025 and the team will be competing in their third-consecutive major tournament when they head to the European Championship in Switzerland.
Here’s what the team have had to overcome in their short history, and why they are confident of breaking new ground and advancing beyond the group stage this summer.
A battle for equality
It had taken the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the end of the fascist regime of Estado Novo (when women’s rights were heavily restricted) for women in Portugal to achieve full legal equality with men in 1976. But it took longer for women’s football to progress.
By 1993, Norway’s federation had registered around 50,000 female players; Italy had 10,000, and England 7,000. Portugal only had around 500, and there were few influential figures in the country who seemed interested in addressing the gap. While the men’s team had reached the semifinals of Euro ’84, the women didn’t enter qualification for the World Cup or European Championship until 1995 and, even when they did, they were the only delegation at the Euro ’95 draw to not have any female members attend.
At club level, despite the likes of Benfica, Sporting CP and FC Porto dominating domestically and winning European competitions in the men’s game since the 1960s, the Women’s National Championship (now Liga BPI) was only formed in 1985 and teams had to finance themselves, while they were forced to use inadequate training facilities for years.
In 2001-02, the UEFA Women’s Cup (now Champions League) was created and Portuguese champions Gatões — an amateur team which had to be subsidized by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) and Matosinhos City Council — represented the country but failed to qualify from the group stage. Then, the following year, 12-time champions 1º Dezembro won their first two group games but lost out to CSK VVS Samara in the final match.
As a result, there was an explosion of popularity for women’s football in the Sintra area near Lisbon that the club struggled to find space to accommodate. “We have already had to hire a driver and van just for the girls, as well as an assistant coach,” club president Fernando Cunha told the media at the time.
The following years saw the first serious investment into domestic women’s football in Portugal when Allianz became a major partner for the FPF, but the global economic crisis of 2007 hit clubs hard. With struggling club sponsors and years of delayed salary payments to players hindering the league’s progress, the best young players — including a then-19-year-old Dolores Silva (who is now Portugal captain) — left for more successful European teams with better facilities and finances.
A change of direction
By 2011, the potential of the domestic league was clear and Carla Couto, who earned 145 caps in her 19 years in the national team, told the Players’ Union magazine Sindicato dos Jogadores: “We have quality, but not visibility.”
That quality came from a surprise source in 2012 as the Portugal women’s U19 team, who had been forced to rely on players as young as 15 to form a full squad only two years previous, reached the semifinals of the UEFA European U19 Championship; Jéssica Silva and Diana Silva [unrelated], who have since won over 200 senior caps between them, were among that talented group. Two years later, current boss Francisco Neto was appointed to manage the senior team.
As a result of the women’s game’s growing reputation, domestic and international games began to be broadcast on Portuguese TV channels more often from 2015, while the FPF invited all top-flight men’s teams to form a women’s team — under conditions to keep the side running for a minimum of three seasons and to create an U19 side within this time.
Braga were the first of the country’s elite to accept. They were followed by Sporting CP, who brought back the team that was founded in 1991 and disbanded during the tenure of club president Pedro Santana Lopes four years later, and committed to an impressive infrastructure of facilities. It took another year for Benfica to follow suit — they entered the second division but have won every Liga BPI title since their promotion. Porto finally joined the league system in 2024, initially slotting into the third tier, and their first home game of the campaign — a 9-0 win — was attended by over 30,000 people.
In 2022, pregnancy and maternity protections were put in place for players, while the following year saw strengthened workplace harassment policies, as well as more female-focused sports science and improved grass pitches. The FPF also addressed the lack of effort towards identifying and developing young talent with the creation of training centres throughout Portugal, bringing together the best players from the various regions and districts. From a 20% rise in overall participation between 2015 and 2016, more than half were in the U19 age group.
An investment of around €600,000 into the top flight in 2019 has now been tripled for the current season, according to Mary Caiado’s comprehensive book “The History of Women’s Football: The Great Portuguese Adventure.” Over 10,000 more female players have been registered in Portugal since 2011 and professional contracts in the league have risen from 41 in 2018 to over 220 now.
Meanwhile, the prize money for the domestic cup has also increased by eight times the amount that was awarded three years ago, with the winner now receiving €80,000.
International progress
Neto had inherited a close-knit, if unbalanced, squad in 2014 and, with a mix of professionals in Europe’s elite leagues and domestic semi-pros, he largely kept the previous formula of using established players like Ana Borges, Carole Costa and Dolores Silva in his setup. Yet he also gradually reaped the rewards of the much-improved youth setup back home and gave debuts to Andreia Faria at 19, Andreia Jacinto at 19, and, perhaps most successfully, Kika Nazareth at 16.
It worked. Portugal’s women qualified for their first European tournament at the newly expanded Euro 2017, beating Scotland and only losing 2-1 to England. Failure to reach the 2019 Women’s World Cup was quickly consigned to history with Russia’s expulsion from the 2022 Euros (due to the invasion of Ukraine) handing them an eventual spot, before a 2-1 win over Cameroon in the 2023 International Playoff final saw them qualify for the World Cup for the first time — where they claimed a win over Vietnam and their 0-0 draw against the U.S. nearly sent the four-time world champions out.
Against such a backdrop of strife, it’s understandable that Portugal’s national side have struggled to progress, but things have been slowly improving for years.
“It has been going on for a while,” Jessica Silva told The Guardian ahead of their 2023 World Cup campaign. “Not only under Francisco Neto, and not only with me and the current players. But these nine years have brought success, evolution and the growth of our team. There has been investment in the women’s game in Portugal so, looking at the big picture, it has been a collective effort to get into the World Cup. We have a different mindset, a new way of playing. We believe in our abilities, in our football.”
Now into his 11th year at the helm, Neto can call upon some of the most promising young players on the scene: though 22-year-old Barcelona forward Kika will miss this summer’s Euros after suffering an ankle injury in mid-March and Gotham FC star Jessica Silva could too after suffering a freak injury to her eye in training that has ruled her out “indefinitely.”
Having been relegated from Nations League A Group 2 in 2023, Portugal had a point to prove and went unbeaten across their 12 games in 2024. “We weren’t happy in the Nations League, but that’s football,” Dolores Silva told the media last year. “But we’ll take away what we’ve worked on to grow as a team. We have a huge responsibility and what we want most is to continue putting Portugal where it should be. We have to look ahead and what’s coming, giving our all. We can’t rest on our laurels.”
The side began this year with a deserved 1-1 draw at home to defending European champions England, and a 1-0 win against Belgium. The game, watched by nearly two million fans in Portugal, revolved around keeping the opposition at bay with a solid defensive unit in a 3-4-1-2 formation before Kika’s arrival off the bench sparked a carnival-like energy into the stadium as she arrived to fire an equalizer into the top corner inside 10 minutes.
Yet Portugal are not a side built around a single player. When Barcelona recalled Kika after the England game, they still managed to beat a tough Belgium side via a Costa penalty and a compact defensive performance that saw them maintain 57% possession and not allow a single shot on target. And it’s the consistency of players and managerial personnel over the past decade which has made them so hard to play against. Seven players in the most recent squad have over 100 caps, and these are the team’s fulcrums with which Neto trusts.
As comfortable set out in a back four as they are in their usual five, often switching between them during games, Portugal are built on the bedrock of veterans Borges and Costa (who also takes penalties and scored from the spot in Friday’s 4-2 defeat by Spain) and led by the forward line of the long-standing Silvas (Jessica and Diana.) Their tactical flexibility has recently been matched by an increasing variety in the squad.
They made use of their expanding array of talent during qualification for Euro 2025, utilising 28 players, among the highest in the round. And, during their three games at the 2023 World Cup, Neto ensured all 22 players had minutes on the field to best prepare them for their final match.
“We know we are not dominant in women’s football, but we are growing,” he told FIFA after the tournament. “These are the players we want; players who can play in different roles in different structures.”
Player alterations tend to take place with an increasing depth of midfield options, including Benfica star Andreia Norton, the experienced Fátima Pinto and Tatiana Pinto, and 22-year-old Andreia Jacinto, who has started every game this season for Real Sociedad.
The balance that was lacking 11 years ago, when Neto took charge, has been addressed both institutionally and culturally. Now, hope is high that Portugal can build on their recent major tournament experience and get through a tough Group B consisting of world champions Spain, Belgium and Italy, which would undoubtedly be their crowning achievement to date.
For much of their history, the sense of optimism among the Portuguese women’s setup was non-existent. Now they are looking to make up for lost time.
