Sport in Portugal

Football is the main sport in Portugal but other sports include basketball , swimming , athletics , tennis , gymnastics , futsal, rink hockey , team handball , volleyball , and rugby championships among the hundreds of sports played in this country.

Cycling , with Volta a Portugal being the most important race, is also popular.

In rink hockey Portugal is the country with most world titles: 15 World Championships and 20 European Championships , and in rugby sevens the Portuguese team has won many international trophies, having as of July 2006 five European Championship titles.

Football

Footaball is the most popular and practised sport in Portugal. Football started to become well known in Portugal in the final decades of the 19th century, brought by Portuguese students who returned from England.

In May 2006, the Portuguese national team was ranked 7th out of 205 countries by FIFA . The most famous Portuguese player is the legendary Eusébio, he is still a symbol of Portuguese football. Current Portuguese players include the Cristiano Ronaldo who plays for Manchester United and Deco who plays for Barcelona and Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is one of the worlds most famous football mangers. The dominating teams in the Portuguese National league are SL Benfica, FC Porto and Sporting CP.