Benfica

Pavilhão da Luz Nº 2 seats 1,800, set against the 15,000 to 20,000 who fill the Altice Arena whenever Benfica reaches a European final and needs somewhere bigger to hold them.

The handball section came seven years after the football club's founding, formed on 8 May 1932, and it did not have an easy run at the start: a dispute with the Portuguese Handball Federation kept the team out of action from 1939 until 1942–43. It carries the same red and white, the same "Eagles" nickname, as the rest of the Lisbon club.

Benfica's best spell in the domestic league came in the 1980s and early 1990s, under coaches Eugene Troffin and Ângelo Pintado, with players such as Paulo Bunze and Fredrik Appelgren.

What changed the club's standing beyond Portugal came in May 2022, at the Altice Arena, in front of the crowd the small home venue could never hold. Benfica beat SC Magdeburg 40–39 after extra time to win the EHF European League — the first time a Portuguese side had taken the trophy, and the run that pushed the club, under captain Paulo Moreno and with Petar Đorđić as top scorer, into that year's IHF Super Globe, where they finished seventh. The following year they stayed away from the tournament.

At home, the rivalry that matters most runs against Sporting CP, the Lisbon derby that sits alongside the older contest with FC Porto. Benfica has taken the Portuguese Cup seven times and the Super Cup as recently as 2025, but a second Super Globe campaign, and a repeat of that Magdeburg night in Europe, remains what the club has not yet managed since.