Portugal U20 Women

Diana Costa took the field for Portugal's under-20 side. That result still sits above anything else the age group has produced, and qualifying through it sent Portugal to the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Poland in 2026, the first time this team had reached the competition.

The side answers to "As Leopardas" — the Leopardesses — a nickname it shares with the senior women's team, along with the red shirts and green shorts. It is, in effect, an extension of the same generation: UEFA and FIFA long ago aligned their age brackets for women's youth football, so the under-19 group that beat the Republic of Ireland 1–0 in Óbidos on 2 October 2002, in what stands as the team's first official match, is the same pool of players who later qualify for the under-20 World Cup.

There is no fixed home ground. Matches tend to fall at the Estádio Nacional do Jamor in Oeiras, a stadium built to hold nearly 38,000 and treated as the anchor of Portuguese football rather than a house built for this team alone. Spain, France and England remain the sides Portugal measures itself against in Europe, England most pointedly since 2017.

Everything traces back to that October afternoon in Óbidos, a single goal against the Irish.