Hello, I’m an English Football fan who made a [post on /r/football](https://www.reddit.com/r/football/comments/19f64gt/to_those_whose_countries_dont_have_a_league/) discussing the existence of League cup (Taça da Liga) in other European countries.

Most have either scrapped the competition (ex: [France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupe_de_la_Ligue), [Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copa_de_la_Liga)) or never had it in the first place. Additionally most people who commented on the post were not interested in having a League cup in their country.

Only [England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFL_Cup), [Scotland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_League_Cup) & Portugal still have it.

English football has lots of money and big support at low divisions.

I don’t think (?) the same can be said of Portugal. I heard on a podcast that it is quite common for non Lisboans to support Sporting & Benefica, but maybe I was misinformed.

​

So, **I’m curious how Portugal can afford to keep Taça da Liga?** (no hate, just curious)

by Master_Commercial220

7 comments

  1. Just something to honour the oldest alliance in the world that is the Anglo-Portuguese one.

    Lol, joking, I agree with them and most people on here I think would too. It’s usually an irrelevant competition that looks to milk the big clubs in Portugal into playing more “important” games between each other (and therefore milking the average Portuguese fan that supports one of the big 3).

    The competition format has never been fair, so it’s not really about giving less successful clubs a chance at glory. Though it has helped some of those clubs get themselves a trophy, but that is despite the format, not because of it. This year’s final is another example.

    The league president is trying to sell the competition to Saudi to make it sustainable, but he’s on his own there. You won’t find many fans supporting that decision. That’s because he’s thinking about having a knockout tournament between the top 6 of the first division and the top 2 of the second division. Hardly makes sense…

    In my opinion, scrape that cup for yesterday. There’s no need for it. Unless it’s indeed designed into giving smaller clubs a chance at glory.

    ^(At which point, the competition becomes unsustainable, because Portuguese sporting culture is not diverse and most support a big club. So yeah, scraping it is probably the best idea.)

  2. Our league is generally very poor in terms of income, so every penny is helpful. There’s no much interest from supporters tho

  3. >I don’t think (?) the same can be said of Portugal. I heard on a podcast that it is quite common for non Lisboans to support Sporting & Benefica, but maybe I was misinformed.

    You weren’t misinformed at all, you’re right, portugal is full of plastics. The attending culture you guys have is completely foreign to most portuguese who simply prefer watching football through the TV.

  4. We call it “Taça da Carica”, translated is something like “Bottle cap cup”.
    Maybe because most of the people consider it a friendly cup or because the first sponsor was Carlsberg.

    I’m Vitória SC supporter and this cup was accessible for us but I would prefer it not to exist.

  6. As others have said, Portuguese football is dominated by the big three. Benfica has around 40% of supporters, Porto and sporting 20 each.
    At the same time Germany eliminated their league cup, Portugal created theirs. It’s just another way of the league (not the fa) trying to make money out of the concentration of power. The league cup system supports that.
    It’s fine as it is, even if it really doesn’t matter too much, not many would miss it if it was to disappear.
    However, some interesting stories can arise of course. Estoril has beaten Porto and Benfica to the final this year, where they will face Braga. Natural consequence: a somewhat of a surprise winner in case of Braga, or huge, in the case of Estoril, with the consequence that the stadium in Leiria (where the league cup final 4 has been for the past few years, before it was Coimbra) will have like 5k spectators.
    I guess along as Allianz (the sponsor) pays for it, it will exist.

  7. The League created for revenue – it has got sponsors over the years-, its
    a way of making supporters of lower teams engaged and it also helps of making use of big stadiums of EURO 2004, which are too big for the teams that use it (some of them still paying debts) – Leiria for instance, has been the Final Four host for a couple of a years now

    Some dont really care if the team gets eliminated, but I dig it as I pratically grew up with it. I have some fun stories of it (beating Sporting and Porto in 2010 is one of my favourite childhood memories, as one of it was during my birthday). Its also a way of helping lower clubs getting a chance at a cup, which we need, its only positive for Portuguese football

    The saturday final has Estoril against Braga, we might have a new winner aside from the Top 4 since Moreirense in 2017

    The slogan is nice aswell, “the Winter Champions” or Campeões de Inverno – thats cute xD

Leave a Reply