Aguas Santas

Águas Santas go into this season measured against a squad that has been rebuilt around returning faces: Pedro Cruz came back to Rua Ferreira de Castro after a spell at FC Porto. The academy still feeds the first team directly — goalkeeper Alexandre Magalhães made his way through it rather than arriving from elsewhere.

The club was legalised by the Direção Geral dos Desportos in 1963, a year after it was founded, and spent its early decades working through the lower divisions before the National Third Division title in 1995–96 and promotion via the Second Division in 1998–99 put it into Andebol 1. The Portuguese Cup followed in 2001–02. A second final came in 2018–19, lost to FC Porto 31–30 in Sines, and the club has since built a reputation at youth level instead, winning the U20 Andebol 1 three years running from 2021–22 to 2023–24.

Ricardo Moreira, himself a former FC Porto player, ran the team from 2020 to 2024 through that cup final and the youth run; Marco Sousa took the job back over for the current campaign. The pavilion that hosts them seats around 1,500 and had its lighting rebuilt in 2020.

Games against FC Porto carry the most weight, sharpened by Moreira's history with both clubs and by that 2019 final. FC Gaia provides the closer, more local needle, while matches against Sporting CP and Benfica tend to be about where the league title ends up rather than anything personal.