Taça de Portugal

The Taça de Portugal (Cup of Portugal) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it will also be known as Taça de Portugal Placard as of the 2015–16 season. Organised by the Portuguese Football Federation since it was first held in 1938, the competition is open to professional and amateur clubs from the top-four league divisions. Matches are played from August–September to May–June, and the final is traditionally held at the Estádio Nacional in Oeiras, near Lisbon. The winners qualify for the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (or the runners-up, in case the winners are also the league champions) and the UEFA Europa League (unless they already qualify for the UEFA Champions League through league placing).

Before 1938, a similar competition was held since 1922 under the name Campeonato de Portugal (Championship of Portugal), which determined the national champions from among the different regional championship winners. The establishment of the Primeira Liga, a nationwide league-based competition, as the official domestic championship in 1938, led to the conversion of the Campeonato de Portugal into the main domestic cup competition, under its current designation. In fact, the trophy awarded to the Portuguese Cup winners is the same that was awarded to the Campeonato de Portugal winners, although titles in each competition are counted separately.

The first winners of the Taça de Portugal were Académica, who defeated Benfica 4–3 in the final held at the Campo das Salésias in Lisbon. Benfica are the most successful team in the competition, with 25 titles in 35 final appearances. Braga are the current holders, having beaten Porto on penalties in the 2016 final to lift their 2nd trophy.

History
The first incarnation of the Portuguese Cup was in 1912, but very few clubs could participate and thus it was not a regular competition, the fact which ended it in 1918, the Portuguese Federation doesn't take in account its existence. It was named Taça do Império since S.C. Império organized it (do not confuse with Taça Império, which was the trophy of the inaugural game at the National Stadium where the Champion and the Cup winner played against each other). In 1922 the Championship of Portugal (Campeonato de Portugal) was created and was played every season with all the clubs participating in elimination rounds, the winners were named Champions of Portugal (although the winners of the Championship of Portugal no longer count as Portuguese football champions) and it was the primary tournament in Portugal, until the creation of the round-robin competition in the middle 1930s. With the success of this competition and the beginning of the recently created and official Portuguese Championship, in the 1938–39 season the Taça de Portugal (Portuguese Cup) was created and the tournament quickly became the second-most important in Portugal. It is organized by the Portuguese Football Federation (Federação Portuguesa de Futebol) and is played by all the teams in the Primeira Liga, Segunda Liga (excluding the B teams), Campeonato Nacional de Seniores (excluding reserve teams), 22 District Championships runners-up and by 18 District Cups winners.

Format
As of the 2008–09 season, the cup is composed of 8 rounds (final included), with 1st level clubs joining at the 3rd round, the 2nd level clubs joining at the 2nd round and the 3rd and lower level clubs competing from the beginning. All rounds are played in a single game, except for the semifinals.

Final venues
Since 1946 the final game has been played at the Estádio Nacional near Lisbon in Jamor, except in 1961 (albeit Estádio das Antas being the home of FC Porto, an agreement was made between the two sides, since it was also quite nearer for Leixões to play), in the three years following the Carnation Revolution and in the season 1982/83, due to FC Porto pressure. In the years after the Carnation Revolution, the venue of the final game would be played at the home ground of the team that won the Portuguese Cup the previous year (note that when Boavista won the Cup two times in a row, the final of the next years were in Estádio das Antas (FC Porto's home ground at the time), since the Estádio do Bessa (Boavista's home ground) was too small to host the final.