Carvalhos

Three seasons ago AD Carvalhos was still a name in the Terceira Divisão, and by the end of the 2025/2026 campaign it had climbed into Andebol 1, the top tier of Portuguese handball. The 2023/2024 title in the third division opened the run; a second, in the Segunda Divisão, followed twelve months later; then came the Divisão de Honra, won ahead of GC Santo Tirso and sealing a third promotion in three attempts.

The club exists because school handball in Carvalhos kept producing players who had nowhere senior to go. AD Carvalhos was founded in 2021 by athletes from the Colégio dos Carvalhos who wanted to keep competing once they aged out of the academy, and the team still trains and plays at the school's own hall, the Pavilhão do Colégio dos Carvalhos, in the Pedroso area of Vila Nova de Gaia.

Andebol 1 now means fixtures against FC Porto and Sporting CP, clubs Carvalhos has faced before without either side treating it as a rivalry to speak of. What carried the team there was mostly homegrown: António Costa and João Machado both scored 100 goals apiece in the promotion-winning 2024/2025 season.

João Faria took charge as head coach after coming through the Colégio dos Carvalhos academy himself, and it is his name that sits behind the three straight promotions.