Primeira Liga Predictions 2026-27: The Opta Supercomputer Projections

Porto prevailed over Benfica and Sporting CP last season, but who will win the Portuguese top-flight title this time? We attempt to answer all the key questions with our 2026-27 Primeira Liga season predictions via the Opta supercomputer.

Another Primeira Liga campaign is almost upon us. Once again, the league promises to showcase some of football’s brightest emerging talents, ambitious underdogs chasing European qualification, and, as ever, Portugal’s ‘Big Three’ (or Os Tres Grandes) of Porto, Benfica and Sporting CP battling for the title.

Here, we assess the leading contenders for the 2026-27 Primeira Liga crown, according to the Opta supercomputer.

Who Will Win the Portuguese Primeira Liga Title?

Sporting CP: 35.3%

Sporting CP head into the new season at something of a crossroads. Despite that, they are still favourites to win the PrimeIra Liga title, given a 35.3% chance by the Opta supercomputer.

The club have enjoyed the most successful period in their modern history in recent times, winning three league titles across the last six seasons (2020-21, 2023-24 and 2024-25), which is as many as they managed across their previous 40 top-flight campaigns combined.

This summer, though, has brought significant upheaval. Francisco Trincão has joined Al-Ahli in a deal reportedly worth around €40 million, Geovany Quenda has completed a €50m move to Chelsea, Morten Hjulmand has signed for Atlético Madrid for €40m, while Hidemasa Morita left the club at the end of his contract and has since joined Hull City.

While some of those deals have provided a much-needed cash injection, which will help the club build for the future, Sporting have lost four players who made a combined 384 Primeira Liga appearances for the club between them and contributed to a combined 122 goals (35 goals, 33 assists). Trincão, in particular, led the club for assists in the league last season (11).

The departures may not be over. Pedro Gonçalves, the player who perhaps most typifies Sporting in the 2020s and a player who helped usher in a new period of success, is also reportedly set to depart the club after playing 165 league games, scoring 75 goals and providing 47 assists. Defender Ousmane Diomande is also being strongly linked with Nottingham Forest.

Manager Rui Borges has responded by reshaping the squad. Sporting moved quickly to sign highly rated 21-year-old defender Ibrahima Ba from Famalicão after his proposed transfer to Strasbourg collapsed.

Rodrigo Zalazar has also joined in a big-money move after a scintillating season with Sporting Braga that saw him involved in 21 goals (16 goals, 5 assists), with only Vangelis Pavlidis (26) and new teammate Luis Suárez (34) recording more in the league. Exciting young attacker Jesse Derry has also joined on loan from Chelsea, while Australia international forward Nestory Irankunda is also reportedly close to arriving from Watford.

The question is if this level of change will ultimately strengthen Sporting or whether the loss of so many influential figures, both on and off the pitch, will prove too much to overcome.

Benfica: 32.8%

It’s not been a particularly successful period for Benfica in recent years, with the Lisbon giants winning just one league title across the last seven seasons. It’s been a spell made all the more painful given they’ve had to watch their city rivals Sporting lift the trophy three times across this period.

Despite going unbeaten under José Mourinho last season (W23 D11), Benfica finished third behind Sporting and Porto. It was only the third time in the last 17 Primeira Liga campaigns that they ended outside the top two.

Marco Silva is the man tasked with bringing Benfica back to the summit of Portuguese football, and the Opta supercomputer has given them a 32.8% chance of winning the title.

Silva has joined the club following a successful spell in England with Fulham. His last season in charge of the Cottagers saw them break their record points total in the Premier League (54).

The 49-year-old has a big task on his hands, though, with this Benfica squad in need of an overhaul. After losing his first competitive match in charge, a 2-1 defeat to St. Gallen in the UEFA Europa League qualifiers, Benfica responded emphatically by winning the second leg 5-0. Pavlidis, Benfica’s top goalscorer in all competitions last season (30), struck four times. If the 27-year-old can continue to fire on all cylinders, Benfica will have a real chance of claiming both the league title and going far in Europe, assuming they reach the league phase.

Striker Jhon Durán has joined on loan from Al-Nassr, with Benfica becoming the seventh different club he’ll have played for since 2021. Whether the Colombian can finally deliver consistent returns remains to be seen.

Experienced defender Clément Lenglet has joined on loan from Atlético Madrid to replace Nicolás Otamendi, while Polish winger Jakub Kamiński arrives from Köln after contributing seven goals and three assists in the Bundesliga last season. Benfica will hope he can provide greater creativity and attacking threat from wide areas.

FC Porto: 21.0%

Porto come into the 2026-27 season arguably the most stable of the “big three”.

After three consecutive campaigns without a league title between 2022-23 and 2024-25, Francesco Farioli guided the Dragões back to the summit last season. Porto lost just two league matches and collected 88 points, a total they have only bettered once before in their history (91 in 2021-22).

Despite that dominant season, though, at 21.0% they are the Opta supercomputer’s third favourites to win the title.

Recent years have seen the departures of key players including Vitinha, Evanilson, Otávio and Nico González, but this summer has been notably quieter. That stability could prove crucial in their title defence.

Jakub Kiwior, who made 26 league appearances during last season’s championship-winning campaign, has completed a permanent move from Arsenal. His presence was central to a defence that kept 21 clean sheets, the highest total across Europe’s top 10 leagues.

Further forward, André Silva has returned to his boyhood club nine years after leaving for Milan. Now 30, and after spells with Real Sociedad, Werder Bremen and Elche, he will be hoping he can still make an impact for the club.

Porto’s problem in recent years, however, has been building on their success. They have not won consecutive Primeira Liga crowns since a run of three between 2010-11 and 2012-13, the first under current club president André Villas-Boas. Since then, Porto have won the title four times in 13 seasons, failing to defend any of those four titles.

The challenge for Farioli is how to turn Porto, once more, into serial winners who can dominate over a sustained period of time.

Sporting Braga: 7.0%

To say that breaking the hegemony of the top three in Portugal is a difficult task would be the understatement of the century.

Of the 91 seasons of the Portuguese top flight, there have been just two seasons in which the title was won by a team other than Benfica, Porto and Sporting – Belenenses in 1945-46 and Boavista in 2000-01.

Braga have consistently been the closest challengers, finishing in the top three twice in the last nine seasons (2019-20 and 2022-23), while placing fourth in each of the other seven campaigns.

In what was his first season in charge of a top-flight club, it was a mixed campaign for Pep Guardiola’s former assistant Carlos Vicens. He guided Braga to the UEFA Europa League semi-finals but lost the Taça da Liga final to local rivals Vitória Guimarães.

In the league, Braga once again finished fourth, although their points tally of 59 meant they finished closer to newly-promoted Alverca in 11th (39 points) than they did to Benfica in third, who finished a whopping 21 points above them.

This season, Vicens will be hoping for a better start to the league season than last term, which saw them win just two of their first eight games.

The club have brought in Gabriel Silva to bolster the attack, with the 24-year-old winger finishing as Santa Clara’s joint-top scorer in the league last season (6), including a late winner against his new club. Full-back Diogo Travassos has arrived from Sporting CP, while experienced striker Jonas Wind joins from Wolfsburg.

As always, it will be a tough ask for Braga to break into the top three, but if they make a strong start to the campaign, they’ll believe they can do it once more.

Famalicão: 2.0%

Famalicão enjoyed a superb campaign last season, finishing fifth with 59 points, the highest league finish in the club’s history. Their 29 goals conceded were the fourth fewest, with only Porto (18), Sporting (24) and Benfica (25) conceding fewer than them.

A clever, well-run club, Famalicão look to identify young talents, develop them and sell them on for profit, all while maintaining an attractive style of football and competing with the league’s strongest sides.

Carlos Carvalhal has been appointed as manager, bringing more than 800 matches of coaching experience across Portugal and abroad, including spells with Sheffield Wednesday, Swansea City, Braga, Celta Vigo and Olympiacos.

This season, they’ve already seen Gustavo Sá, the 21-year-old midfielder who had an excellent season last term for the club, depart for Nottingham Forest (before being loaned to Olympiacos), for around €20m. Highly-rated defender Ibrahima Ba also completed a €21m transfer to Sporting.

Although frustrating for supporters, sales like these are necessary for a club like Famalicão to survive. This season is no different.

In the market, they’ve continued to do what they always do: identify young talent across Europe with the hopes they’ll make an immediate impact before being sold on.

Twenty-two-year-old forward Georgios Koutsias, who netted six goals in the Swiss Super League last season for FC Lugano, has joined, alongside 21-year-old Tamás Szűcs from Debrecen and 23-year-old defender Finn van Breemen from Basel.

Whether Famalicão can push on and secure European qualification remains to be seen, but an encouraging opening fixture list against Estoril, newly-promoted Marítimo, and Santa Clara offers Carvalhal’s side an excellent opportunity to build momentum early in the campaign.

They are, of course, a massive outside shot to win the title at 2.0%. Even a top-two finish (6.3%) would be remarkable.

How Does the Opta Supercomputer Model Work?

• Opta’s League Prediction model estimates the likelihood of teams finishing in each position in the competition. We can therefore see how successful a team’s season is likely to be, whether it’s their relegation or title chances.

• The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) by using betting market odds and Opta Power Rankings. The odds and rankings are based on historical and recent team performances.

• The model considers the strength of opponents by using these match outcome probabilities and simulates the remaining fixtures in the competition thousands of times. By analysing the outcome of each of these simulations, the model can see how often teams finished in each league position to create our final predictions.

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