Porto Women

Just over 31,000 people turned up at the Estádio do Dragão in September 2024 to watch a team play its first-ever match, still weeks from a league fixture.

The 2024 date matters because it settles a point of confusion: the women's section carries none of the history sometimes pinned on 2019, a year that belongs to a different Porto department altogether.

What followed was rapid by any measure. The one door that stayed shut was the Taça AF Porto, where Valadares Gaia beat them to the trophy two years running.

Top-flight football brings the Estádio do Dragão into regular use rather than reserving it for occasions, and with it the rivalries that come stitched into the shirt: Benfica across O Clássico, Boavista across the Derby da Invicta.