Portugal

The Estádio Nacional, tucked in Oeiras next to the federation's own training complex, holds a little under 38,000 and belongs to the Portuguese Football Federation more than to the team itself. Most nights when Portugal actually play, the crowd is somewhere else entirely: Estádio da Luz, José Alvalade or the Dragão, whichever of the big Lisbon and Porto grounds fits the occasion, each seating tens of thousands more than the federation's own house.

Portugal took the field for the first time on 18 December 1921, in Madrid, and lost 3–1 to Spain — the opening match of a rivalry that has never really cooled, through a 10–0 defeat in 1947 and, on the opposite end of the mood, the penalty shootout that settled the 2025 Nations League final against the same opponent. The federation itself dates to that founding season, and the crest carried onto the pitch ever since gives the side its name, Seleção das Quinas, after the five small shields on the national flag.

The team went trophyless for the better part of a century until 2016, when a side missing an injured Cristiano Ronaldo from very early in the final still beat France 1–0 in extra time at the European Championship — payback of a kind for the semi-final loss to Greece in 2004, the tournament Portugal had hosted and expected to win. Ronaldo has since become the side's all-time top scorer and most-capped player, though it is Eusébio's name that still carries the 1966 World Cup, the tournament in which Portugal finished third and he top-scored. Jorge Jesus now manages a squad built around a generation, Bruno Fernandes and João Félix among them, that grew up through the academies of Sporting, Benfica and Porto.

When there is a final to win, it is rarely the Estádio Nacional that fills — the team saves that for Lisbon's larger stages, keeping Oeiras as the quieter home address in between.