Alcains

Twice CD Alcains climbed into the Campeonato de Portugal, the national third tier, only to be sent back down within a season — first in 2018-19, then again in 2020-21. The answer came in 2023-24, when the club won the district championship and the Taça de Honra of the Associação de Futebol de Castelo Branco in the same campaign, a double that bought it another crack at national football.

The club itself formed on 27 July 1977, though organised football in the town goes back further — a sports section run by Clube Recreativo Alcainense from 1974, and before that Grupo Desportivo Alcainense, founded in 1951. Black and red are the colours, an odd pairing for a side nicknamed Os Canarinhos.

Alcains has reached the third division three times since the 1990s — 1994-98, then 2000-02, then 2003-05 — and in 2002-03 won the Tercera División de Portugal outright, still its highest honour. Locally the record runs deeper: eight titles in the Liga Regional de Castelo Branco between 1978 and 2024, four Copas de Castelo Branco, and a derby against Sertanense FC that carries more weight in the district than anything played in Lisbon.