FC PortoFC Porto, founded on 28 September 1893 on the initiative of wine merchant Antonio Nicolau de Almeida, is one of only three clubs never to have been relegated from Portugal's top division since the national league's formation in the 1930s — together with Benfica and Sporting CP it forms the country's so-called "Big Three". The club's distinctive blue-and-white vertical stripes have accompanied it since its earliest days; according to club tradition, they were meant to echo the colours of the Portuguese monarchy, with which Almeida was connected through his trading business.
Porto shares the national record with 31 league titles, the latest secured in the 2025/26 season, and has also won 20 Portuguese Cups along with a record 24 Portuguese Super Cups. For decades after the Second World War, however, the club lived in the shadow of its Lisbon rivals, going without a major trophy until the 1970s. The turning point came with the arrival of Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, the club's long-serving president, under whom Porto grew into one of the dominant forces in European football.
The most iconic moment in the club's history came on 27 May 1987 in Vienna, when Porto, trailing in the European Cup final against Bayern Munich, equalised thanks to Algerian striker Rabah Madjer's famous backheel flick — still regarded as one of the greatest goals in European final history — before completing the turnaround with a 2–1 win, the club's first-ever triumph in Europe's premier club competition.
The club wrote another legendary chapter in 2004, when under then largely unknown young coach José Mourinho it sensationally won the Champions League, thrashing AS Monaco 3–0 in the final — a triumph that catapulted Mourinho into the ranks of the world's most sought-after managers and made Porto one of the few clubs outside Europe's biggest leagues to lift the trophy in the 21st century. A year earlier, in the 2002/03 season, the same squad had already claimed a domestic and European treble under Mourinho, winning the league, the national cup and the UEFA Cup.
Porto also lifted the Europa League in 2011, when under then-young coach André Villas-Boas the team went through an entire unbeaten league campaign and beat fellow Portuguese side Braga 1–0 in the Dublin final on a solitary goal from Radamel Falcao — the Colombian finished the competition with 17 goals, a tally that remains the record for most goals scored in a single Europa League campaign.
Porto play their home matches at the modern Estádio do Dragão, opened in 2003 with a capacity of over 50,000. For decades the club has also been renowned for a scouting model built on bringing in young talent from South America and Africa, who after developing at Porto move on for record fees to Europe's top leagues — a model that remains central to the club's sporting and financial strategy today.
