Chaves

Chaves have never settled on a single old enemy, and the record reflects the way their rivalries have followed their status rather than the map. In the lower divisions it was FC Felgueiras that mattered most, a neighbour from Trás-os-Montes met again and again in the third and second tiers and in the Cup, with the fixtures of the mid-1990s remembered as particularly bitter. Since Chaves settled into Liga Portugal 2, the sharper edge has belonged to Paços de Ferreira, games local reporters still describe as duels rather than fixtures.

The club itself came together on 27 September 1949, when Atlético Clube Flaviense merged with Flávia Sport Clube, which had been playing since 1919, and the merged side has kept the Grupo Desportivo de Chaves name ever since. A professional arm, GD Chaves SAD, was split off in 2015 to run the senior team, leaving the original association to run youth and amateur football. In 2025 a Mexican company, GLS Promotoría del Deporte, bought the club.

Chaves reached the top flight for the first time in 1984/85 and had their best season there two years later, finishing fifth under Raul Aguas, a former Portugal captain, and qualifying for the UEFA Cup. The club dropped out of the elite twice more before falling as far as the third tier in 2006/07, then climbed back through the divisions to reach a Cup final in 2009/10, where Porto beat them 1-2. A financial crisis the following season nearly cost Chaves their licence; supporters and a club reorganisation kept it alive. Promotion returned in 2015/16 after seventeen years away, under a coaching staff that would later include Leonardo Jardim, who went on to manage Benfica and Monaco, and Luís Castro, who left for Porto and Braga. The most recent relegation came in 2023/24, sending the club back to Liga Portugal 2.

Home games are played at the Estádio Municipal Eng.º Manuel Branco Teixeira, where the old south stand came down in 2017 and was replaced with a covered stand for 3,000, taking capacity to 8,400, all seated. Before the rebuild, the ground had once held a crowd of 25,000. Supporters still call the team the Valentes, and in the stands the shirt keeps its red-and-blue stripe, a colour combination that has stayed with the club through every division it has passed through.