Youth talents to the fore as Braga again upset the “Big Three” paradigm in Portugal

With just three weeks remaining, it’s shaping up to be an enthralling end to the 2024/25 Liga Portugal campaign. Sporting are perched atop the standings, level on 75 points with Benfica, and the Lisbon rivals will face off against each other on 10 May in a pivotal title decider.

At the bottom of the table, Boavista (21 points), Farense (21) occupy the final two relegation spots, AVS (24) are mired in the relegation playoff spot, whilst Estrela da Amadora (29) are hovering above the drop zone but are likely safe after their shock victory against Porto at the weekend. The key game here could be Boavista’s visit to AVS on Monday 5 May, in the fight to avoid automatic relegation. 

Sixth-placed Santa Clara (50) are challenging Vitória (51) for the coveted fifth place, which earns qualification to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League.

Back in the upper echelons meanwhile, Braga and Porto find themselves in a heated battle for Europa League football and a podium finish. Zach Lowy takes a closer look at how another strong Braga campaign is being fired by talents emanating from the club’s increasingly fruitful youth academy. 

Braga have gained a reputation as Portugal’s fourth-biggest team over the past two decades. Too good to be threatened by midtable sides with a significantly lower budget, but not good enough to challenge for the title. The proof is in the pudding. The Minhotos have finished fourth in the table in seven of the last 10 seasons. Whilst they haven’t yet managed to win their first-ever league title and become the first team outside of the Big Three to be crowned Portuguese champions since Boavista in 2000/01, they have diminished the gap separating them from Porto, Benfica and Sporting in recent years.

Regular silverware

Braga’s ascension this century has seen them win two Portuguese Cups and three Portuguese League Cups in little over a decade. Prior to that, the club’s only trophy was a single Portuguese Cup in their entire history.

In 2019/20, a season that saw them go through four different managers, Braga edged Sporting to third place on the final day, whilst they also beat Sporting and Porto en route to claiming the Taça da Liga title. Carlos Carvalhal returned to the helm in the summer of 2020 for the second time, having previously coached Braga in 2006, and delivered a positive campaign that saw them beat Porto in the semifinals and Benfica in the final to win the Taça de Portugal, in addition to losing to Sporting in the Taça de Liga Final.

Braga then enjoyed a superb European campaign in 2021/22 by knocking out Sheriff Tiraspor and Monaco before losing to eventual runners-up Rangers in the Europa League quarterfinals, but their domestic form wasn’t quite as efficacious: they finished fourth in the table, nine points behind third-placed Benfica, and exited both cup competitions in the early stages.

Club president António Salvador elected to move on from Carvalhal and replace him with Artur Jorge, who, like Carvalhal, had developed in Braga’s academy and played for their first team. Jorge struck a chord in Braga’s squad and guided them to a third-place finish and qualification to the Champions League third qualifying round, where Braga would brush past TSC and Panathinaikos and return to Europe’s premier club competition for the first time in 11 years. They finished third in their group behind Real Madrid and Napoli and were relegated to the Europa League knockout playoffs, where they lost to Qarabağ FK on penalties, whilst they also beat Estoril Praia in the Taça da Liga Final.

Managerial changes

But just when they were challenging Porto for third place during the home stretch of the campaign, Jorge elected to jump ship and join Brazilian side Botafogo, where he proceeded to win the Brasileirão and Copa Libertadores, with Rui Duarte taking charge on an interim basis. Braga needed to win at home on the final day vs. Porto in order to edge the Dragons to third place. Instead, Wenderson Galeno scored against his former side in the 84th minute to secure a 1-0 victory for the visitors.

Daniel Sousa took charge as Braga’s new manager in the summer of 2024 and oversaw two wins and two draws before being sacked, prompting him to take Salvador to court after not being given an adequate reason for his dismissal. The Arcebispos turned to a familiar face in Carvalhal, who signed on for a fifth chapter on 11 August, having previously played for his hometown club between 1978 and 1985, 1986 and 1988, and 1990 and 1992.

Carvalhal began his newest tenure at the Quarry with four wins on the bounce before running into some turbulence in the following months, with Braga losing to Vitória, Porto, Benfica and Casa Pia in the league and Benfica in the Taça da Liga semifinals, as well as narrowly missing out on a place in the Europa League knockout round. This prompted a January makeover in the transfer market. Bruma joined Benfica for €6.5 million, Yuri Ribeiro departed for Blackburn Rovers on a free transfer, whilst Matheus Magalhães, Roberto Fernández and André Horta decamped on loan. One year after Carvalhal brought him to Greek club Olympiakos, Fran Navarro reunited with the coach at Braga after joining on loan from Porto, whilst Uroš Račić terminated his loan at Championship outfit West Bromwich Albion in order to return for a second spell with Os Guerreiros do Minho.

Carvalhal works his magic

Slowly but surely, this overhaul has started to pay dividends for Braga, who have begun to pick up the pace under Carvalhal, winning five of their last seven matches. Apart a 1-0 loss at Benfica in the Taça de Portugal and a 2-1 defeat at Rio Ave within four days of each other in late February-early March, Braga have not lost any of their other 13 matches, winning 10 during that same timespan.

The excellent run is thanks in large part to an increased reliance on academy talents and young stars. Francisco Chissumba (19) has emerged as a vital cog at left-back, Roger Fernandes (19) has excelled and prompted many pundits like Cristobal Soria to dub him one of Europe’s top attacking prospects, goalkeeper Lukáš Horníček (22) has assumed the #1 position after years of biding his time behind Matheus Magalhães, striker Afonso Patrão (18) scored a vital equaliser versus Sporting, whilst various non-homegrown players like Ismael Gharbi (21), Diego Rodrigues (19), Amine El Ouazzni (23), and Jean-Baptiste Gorby (22) have also caught the eye.

Between these young stars and their veteran leaders like João Moutinho, Ricardo Horta, Rodrigo Zalazar and Račić, Braga have found the right balance between youth and experience.

Tactical tweaks bring about improvement

“In the first half of Carvalhal’s season, Braga made a lot of defensive mistakes, just as they did in 2023/24,” stated SC Braga News. “In an attempt to solve this, Carvalhal played several games with three central defenders (João Ferreira entered the starting eleven as the third central defender on the right) and often put the wingers Gabri Martínez and Roger on the wings in a 5-2-3. This allowed him to protect Bruma, who had zero defensive commitment and did not drop back, but with the ascendancy of Chissumba and the improvement in Víctor Gómez’s form in the right-back position, the system changed to a 4-2-3-1.

“The reality is that the 5-2-3 worked up to a certain point, but then we started conceding a lot of goals again, and we had to change things again. At the time, Carvalhal stated in a press conference that this was the most difficult moment of his career from a dressing room context, and that he didn’t know what else to do on the pitch to change it.

“After that horrible defeat against Casa Pia to close out 2024, Braga started to win despite not putting in great performances, and little by little, they’ve been evolving with consistently positive results,” continued SC Braga News.

“Today, we can see a team that plays very calmly, that asserts its own style, and that wins on the pitch. The team is defending a lot more solidly thanks to the emergence of Chissumba and Horníček as well as the departures of players like André Horta and Bruma, who destabilised the locker room due to their egos and who contributed little defensively. Braga is once again a team that is exciting to watch play and that has many young talents who will make the leap.”

Academy success breeds success

Braga’s success in nurturing youth talent, both homegrown and youngsters brought in from abroad, is no chance event. The club’s sustained success over two decades has enabled it to invest heavily in its infrastructures, with the strategic emphasis on its youth training facilities paying rich dividends.

David Carmo, Pedro Neto, Vitinha, Ricardo Gomes and Álvaro Djaló are just a few of the high-class products that have earned the club transfer windfalls on a regular basis in recent years, enabling further investment. The latest phase of the state-of-the-art Cidade Desportiva SC Braga was inaugurated amid much pomp and circumstance in September 2023.

With the likes of Roger Fernandes, Afonso Patrão, Diego Rodrigues, Ismaël Gharbi, Francisco Chissumba and Lukas Horníček all impressing this season, more big-money sales are inevitable.

Exciting end-of-season tussle with northern neighbours Porto

Whilst Portugal’s third-best team will automatically advance to next season’s UEFA Europa League, going directly into the league phase, the fourth-place team will have to go through three rounds of qualifying before booking their ticket to Europe’s secondary competition. Braga fans went to bed on Friday night worried that they had coughed up the coveted third spot after a 1-1 draw at Famalicão, only for Porto to lose 2-0 to Estrela da Amadora the following day.

Today, Braga find themselves with the upper hand for third place, boasting 64 points in comparison to Porto’s 62. However, Braga will have to deal with a significantly tougher schedule: Whilst Porto will be facing off against Moreirense (10th in the table), Boavista (18th) and Nacional (12th), Braga will be going up against Santa Clara (6th), Casa Pia (8th) and Benfica (2nd). 

Can Braga finish the season on the podium of Portuguese football, or will Porto edge them to a top-three placement? Should Braga do it, their latest young gems will no doubt play a part as the club that boasts one of the most unique stadiums anywhere in the world continues its evolution, edging ever closer in terms of competitiveness to Portugal’s traditional Big Three. Stay tuned for what promises to be an enthralling run-in to the Primeira Liga campaign.