Sporting Clube de Braga

Also written as Braga, SC Braga, Sp. Braga.

The club

Braga were founded on 19 January 1921 and play at the Estadio Municipal de Braga, the quarry ground cut into the Monte do Castro hillside, which holds 30,286. The club are known as Os Arcebispos, the Archbishops, after the city's ecclesiastical history, and also as Os Arsenalistas, a name that dates from the adoption of Arsenal's red and white in the 1930s, and as Os Guerreiros do Minho, the Minho Warriors. They play in red and white.

Recent seasons

Braga have been a fixture in the upper half of the Primeira Liga without ever winning it. They finished third in 2020/21, fourth in 2021/22 with 65 points, and third in 2022/23 with 78 points, which is the club's record points total. They were fourth in 2023/24 with 68, fourth again in 2024/25 with 66, and fourth once more in 2025/26 with 59. That last finish is the one that matters for this season: it sent them into the Conference League at the second qualifying round rather than into the Europa League proper, and it came in the same season as their deepest European run in fifteen years.

Honours and landmarks

Braga have won the Taca de Portugal three times, in 1965/66, 2015/16 and 2020/21, and the Taca da Liga three times, in 2012/13, 2019/20 and 2023/24. They won the Segunda Divisao in 1946/47 and 1963/64. In 2008 they won the UEFA Intertoto Cup outright, the only Portuguese club to have done so. They have never won the Portuguese league title.

Notable scorelines

No all-time record victory or record defeat was confirmed from the sources read here. The results the club is measured by are European. Braga beat Sevilla 1-0 at home and 4-3 in Seville in the 2010/11 Champions League play-off round, having already eliminated Celtic, to reach the group stage for the first time; they were then beaten 6-0 by Arsenal on 15 September 2010. They lost the 2011 Europa League final to Porto in Dublin on 18 May 2011 to a Radamel Falcao goal. In April 2026 they won 4-2 away at Real Betis to take a Europa League quarter-final 5-3 on aggregate.

European record

Braga's European history divides cleanly into the years before 2008 and the years after. The Intertoto Cup win of 2008 opened the door; the following season they reached the last 16 of the UEFA Cup and went out to Paris Saint-Germain by a single goal.

The 2010/11 season remains the high point. Second in the league the previous year, Braga came through Champions League qualifying by eliminating Celtic and then Sevilla, winning 1-0 at home and 4-3 away in the play-off. In the group they were beaten 6-0 by Arsenal on 15 September 2010 and finished third behind Shakhtar Donetsk and Arsenal, dropping into the Europa League. From there they reached the final in Dublin on 18 May 2011, beating Liverpool and Dynamo Kyiv along the way, and lost 1-0 to Porto.

Since then they have been a regular European entrant across all three competitions: the Europa League group stage and a Conference League knockout play-off in 2022/23, the Champions League group stage in 2023/24 in a group with Real Madrid, Napoli and Union Berlin in which they managed one win and one draw, and the Europa League league phase in 2024/25.

The 2025/26 Europa League was their best campaign since 2011. They beat Ferencvaros 4-2 on aggregate in the round of 16, winning 4-0 at home and losing 0-2 away, then drew 1-1 at home with Real Betis on 8 April 2026 and won 4-2 in Seville on 16 April to go through 5-3. In the semi-final they beat Freiburg 2-1 at home on 30 April 2026 but lost the return 1-3 in Freiburg on 7 May and went out 4-3 on aggregate. Freiburg went on to lose the final 3-0 to Aston Villa in Istanbul on 20 May 2026.

Braga's overall European record to 1 August 2026 is 219 matches, 104 won, 42 drawn and 73 lost, with 331 goals scored and 275 conceded. Most of that is the UEFA Cup and Europa League, in which they have played 175 matches and won 82.

Quotes

No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. The club's own site and the main Portuguese sports titles returned 403 responses to the fetches attempted for this dossier, and nothing verbatim could be checked.

Right now (2026/27)

Carlos Vicens, the Spanish coach appointed on 28 May 2025, remains in charge for a second full season. No managerial change involving Braga is recorded in the 2026/27 Primeira Liga sources read here. Summer 2026 transfer business was not established: no Wikipedia list of Portuguese transfers for summer 2026 exists and the club's own site could not be read, so this dossier makes no claim about who has come in or gone out.

Braga entered the Conference League at the second qualifying round as Primeira Liga fourth. They beat Zeleznicar Pancevo 5-0 on aggregate, winning 1-0 away at the SC Mladost Stadium in Pancevo on 22 July 2026 through a Ricardo Horta penalty on 67 minutes, and 4-0 at home on 30 July 2026, Horta again from the spot and further goals from Gabriel Silva, Pau Victor and Fran Navarro.

The tie they are in right now is the Conference League third qualifying round against Dinamo Minsk, the club the feed calls Din. Minsk. Braga won the first leg 1-0 at the Estadio Municipal on 6 August 2026, Ricardo Horta converting a penalty on 45 minutes in front of 14,586. The second leg is on 13 August 2026, and it is not in Belarus: Belarusian clubs must play their home matches at neutral venues and behind closed doors, so the tie will be settled at the Stadion Beroe in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, with no crowd. A one-goal lead from a home first leg is thinner than Braga would have wanted against a side they are heavily favoured to beat, and it is the only goal they have to show for ninety minutes of pressure.

Domestically the Primeira Liga began on 7 August 2026 and Braga opened with a 2-2 draw away at Moreirense.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.