Ask your average football fan to name a Portuguese football club & nine times out of ten you will get an answer back of either; FC Porto, Sporting Clube de Portugal (Lisbon) or SL Benfica. The ‘Big 3’ of Portuguese football are famous across Europe & beyond & have completely dominated domestic football in Portugal since its inception. However there is a small city located in the north of the country that has a team that possesses one of the most passionate set of fans in the country & a team that have been knocking on the door of the ‘Big 3’ for years.

Vitória Sport Clube or more commonly known as Vitória de Guimarães are the team in question. The football team is the pride & joy of the city as they are the only professional football team to represent the city. Founded in 1922, Vitória’s football team have proudly represented the city along with many of the other teams that represent the Vitória Sport Clube banner in other sports such as; futsal, basketball, water polo & volleyball.

Vitória play their home games at the Estádio de Alfonso Henriques which has a capacity of just over 30,000. A medium sized stadium by modern standards, but this 30,000 capacity is very significant relative to the overall size of Guimarães. The city limit of Guimarães has a population of around 40,000, while the overall metropolitan area including all of the suburbs brings the total to around 150,000, a mere 13th on the list of Portuguese cities by size of population. With an average home attendance of around 18,000 in recent seasons, you have a considerably large percentage of the entire Guimarães population attending Vitória’s home games week-in week-out.

Granted it is on a much smaller scale, but Vitória’s relationship to the city of Guimarães can be likened to what happens in Naples & Marseille with their football teams. The idea of a “one-team city” seems to develop a more meaningful & often more passionate relationship between the football club & the city.

On the pitch, it is safe to say that Vitória have not been overly successful. Their trophy cabinet boasts a Taça de Portugal (Portuguese Cup) win in 2013 & a Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (Portuguese Super Cup) win in 1988. They have never managed to win a Primeira Liga & the pinnacle of their European adventures was a UEFA Cup quarter-final exit at the hands of Borussia Mönchengladbach back in 1987. So what is to be celebrated about this club is certainly not its illustrious on-the-field history.

Vitória’s lack of domestic success is directly linked to the dominance of the ‘Big 3’, as briefly alluded to in the opening paragraph. Between Porto, Benfica & Sporting they have won all but two of Portugal’s First Division titles since its inception in 1934; CF Belenenses in 1946 & Boavista FC in 2001. While in more recent times, since 2003 either Benfica or Porto have won every single Primeira Liga. Vitória, along with many of other teams in the Primeira, are essentially battling to try to break the ‘Big 3’ strangle-hold & grab one of the much coveted European places. The last time Vitória were successful in doing so was in 2008 with a 3rd place finish.

Vitória would often be looked upon as a “selling club”. Being a “selling club” is all relative however; Vitória are at times seen as a selling club by Portugal’s ‘Big 3’, who regularly purchase their players. But Portugal’s Big 3 are themselves “selling clubs” to Spain & England’s big boys for example.

Edmund Tapsoba came through Vitória’s B team to eventually become a first team regular & he was sold in 2019 to Bayer Leverkusen for €18million, a club record fee. It is a very sustainable business model to focus on the development of these homegrown talents & sell them on to these “bigger” clubs at a huge profit. Some other noteworthy names & transfers involving Vitória down the years include Bebé’s transfer to Manchester United in 2010 & the transfer of current Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Nuno Espírito Santo to Deportivo La Coruña in 1997.

Vitória contest the “Derby do Minho” with SC Braga, named after the region in which the cities of Guimarães & Braga are located. The most famous derby in Portugal is between Lisbon’s two major clubs Benfica & Sporting, but the hotly contested Minho derby is known as the “other derby” to fans in Portugal. Both Vitória & Braga have a huge rivalry with Porto given the geographical location of the three cities, but Vitória-Braga games are a much bigger deal to the fans, seen evidently in 2013 when a ‘B’ team game was abandoned after just seven minutes due to rioting in the stands between the two sets of fans. 

Just 25km separates Guimarães & Braga so this is the fixture both sets of fans look for once fixtures are released. In the last 60 meetings between the two Vitória have won 20 times to Braga’s 25 so it is by no means a one-sided fixture, despite Braga having had much more domestic & European success down the years. It may not have all the notoriety of the Lisbon derby, but make no mistake the Minho derbies are a very big deal.

What is to be celebrated by Vitória de Guimarães is their fans & in particular their ultras group the ‘White Angels 99’. Their passionate support & pride in the team & city rivals that of any of the ‘Big 3’ in Portugal. Displays, pyro shows, smoke bombs, flags, colour & noise are what are found weekly in the Alfonso Henriques & have gained the White Angels 99 a reputation of being amongst the best ultras in the country. Vitória often embrace the tag of being the “underdog” on the pitch, but have a reputation to maintain & enhance in the stands.

A memorable display of theirs occurred in April of 2019 in a league game versus CD Aves. This game coincided with the 20th anniversary of the White Angels 99 & they took their chance to put on a show with a huge, full-stand tifo prior to kick-off & a series of smoke bombs & flares throughout the 90minutes.

Many clubs around the world have their own unique club anthem & Vitória is no different. A rendition of “Sou Vitória” will be passionately sung prior to home games at the Alfonso Henriques with thousands of black & white flags, balloons & scarves held aloft. It mirrors plenty of pre-match rituals but in particular Sou Vitória can draw many spine-tingling comparisons to experiencing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at Anfield.

Portugal is a very popular spot for weekend trips with people flocking from all across the continent. For the football fans out there who like to incorporate the beautiful game into a cultural weekend away, they should definitely look at visiting Guimarães as a day-out away from Porto or Braga perhaps. There you will likely encounter some of the most football crazy fans in the country mixed in with the passion of an entire city that has love from one team & one team only; Vitória de Guimarães.