Thirty-three players debuted for Portugal’s under-21s; 19 scored

In Pazardzhik on 25 September 2026, Portugal’s under-21s led Bulgaria after Gustavo Varela scored in the 51st minute. The lead lasted until the 87th, when Damyan Yordanov equalised; Marinov then scored at 90+1 to turn Portugal’s advantage into a 2-1 defeat. Two goals in the final minutes changed the shape of the campaign: Portugal had been close to taking a valuable result, but instead left Bulgaria with their qualification hopes under pressure and little room for another setback.

A Bola interprets Portugal’s results as evidence of strength across the national-team system, crediting coordination by the reorganised National Technical Directorate. Tojo says the Federation has added scouting and sports-intelligence teams to support coaches with data; the results show breadth, but do not by themselves prove that the system caused them or will sustain them. The approach also relies on clubs and regional associations developing players and coaches. It is a claim about organisation as much as talent: with the senior side back in November and the under-21s bound for the 2027 European Championship, the next test is whether the structure keeps delivering across age groups.

The senior men’s team is only one part of the recent run. Portugal have qualified for the Nations League quarter-finals and reached fifth in the FIFA ranking, A Bola reports. Jorge Jesus opened his tenure with four wins: twice against Norway, and once each against Denmark and Wales.

The unbeaten start gives the new coach an early record to build on, but the results extend well beyond his team.

Portugal’s beach-soccer side won the 2026 Mundialito, beating Paraguay 11-8. The women’s football team also moved through a World Cup qualifying play-off tie against Northern Ireland: they won the first leg 4-0 away in Larne, then came from behind to win 3-1 in Portimão. Elmore put the visitors ahead in the return, before Carolina Santiago, Jéssica Silva and Carole Costa scored for Portugal.

That play-off place followed Portugal’s first-place finish in Nations League Group B3, which also brought direct promotion to League A. The women’s futsal team added another qualification, finishing the Elite Round with a perfect winning record to reach the European Championship. Across the senior men, beach soccer, women’s football and futsal, success has appeared in different competitions and formats.

Four matches, four wins! We return to the pitch in November to face two more challenges!

Portugal confirmed qualification for the 2027 European Championship by beating Gibraltar 4-0, then finished the campaign with a 2-0 win over the Czech Republic. First in Group B, Luís Freire’s side collected 25 points from a possible 30: eight wins, one draw and one defeat.

The defensive record was exceptional. Portugal conceded twice in ten matches and kept nine clean sheets; their average of 0.20 goals conceded per game was their best in a European under-21 qualifying campaign. They scored 35, the second-highest total in qualifying, behind Spain’s 47. In the opening seven matches, Portugal did not concede and scored 28 goals, matching the national under-21 record for consecutive qualifying clean sheets.

One result captured the scale of the attack: an 11-0 away win over Gibraltar, equalling the biggest victory in the team’s history, with nine Portuguese players scoring. The goals came from a wide pool. Thirty-three players made their under-21 debuts during Freire’s cycle, and 19 different players scored in the qualifying campaign.

That breadth reached the youngest end of the squad. Mezian made his official debut against Bulgaria aged 16 years, 10 months and 17 days; five days later, he became Portugal’s youngest-ever under-21 starter. Before qualification was secured, Freire had set the ambition in simple terms.

Achieve what has not yet been done.

The changes have included decisions about who leads the teams and how the youth sides are organised. In July 2026, Jorge Jesus arrived at the City of Football to replace Roberto Martínez, while the Portuguese Football Federation also changed its youth-team coaching structure, A Bola reported. The timing put a new senior coach alongside a reshaped pathway for the younger squads.

Tojo also pointed to recruitment among people of Portuguese descent and to the FPF Academy as parts of the system. Those functions widen the work beyond match preparation: they are intended to help identify players and support decisions about how talent can be developed and brought into national teams.

A Bola’s account also stresses the value of appointing coaches early enough for them to turn talent into performance. That is a different task from simply picking a squad: it gives coaches time to work with players before competition begins. The Federation’s structure, as described by Tojo, brings planning, information and recruitment into that process, while the next question is whether the coaching itself changes as players grow.

That pathway does not ask every coach to teach the same way. Óscar Tojo told A Bola that the ages from 15 to 17 are primarily a development stage: the focus is on individual players and collective skills, with less emphasis on tactical strategy. The aim, he said, is to let young players discover and develop before the game is framed chiefly around results.

We clearly see two different stages, one between the ages of 15 and 17. It is a stage of discovery and development, when we want to focus on the individual aspects of the player and develop our skills as a team, as a collective, and minimise the strategic effect of the game.

From under-17 onwards, Tojo described a shift towards performance and a coach with a different profile. The change is not simply a greater demand for results; it also calls for more strategic leadership as players move into older teams.

At that point, yes, with a different strategic dimension. The profile has to be different: a much more strategic coach in terms of leadership itself.

The work around the national teams also has a local base. One example is the Association of Football of Porto, which inaugurated the second phase of its training centre with support from the Portuguese Football Federation. That work sits alongside a record that stretches beyond this qualifying campaign.

Portugal have won the Nations League twice, in 2018/19 and 2024/25. Spain and France won the editions between those titles, and Portugal became the first country to lift the trophy twice after beating Spain on penalties in the 2024/25 final. The competition was created to replace friendlies with competitive matches between nations of similar strength, and includes promotion and relegation.

Its format has also changed: the top two teams in each League A group now enter home-and-away quarter-finals, with the four winners advancing to the finals. Portugal’s two titles offer a longer measure of achievement than a single run of results, while the structure gives the senior side another competitive route to test itself.

The final minutes in Pazardzhik belong to September; the next evidence will arrive across different teams and competitions. Portugal’s senior side has a home date in November, the women face a two-leg play-off, and the under-21s have a major tournament ahead in 2027.

• Portugal host Denmark on 14 November 2026.
• The women’s two-legged play-off against Iceland begins on 26 November and concludes on 5 December 2026.
• The under-21s compete at the 2027 European Championship in Albania and Serbia.