Portugal: When Football Kicked Against a Dictatorship

Portugal lived under Western Europe’s longest dictatorship of the 20^th century from 1926 until the Carnation Revolution of April 1974. One of the key catalysts for the demise of the regime came in 1969 – and it was a football club that gave the country the confidence to bring down the dictatorship. 

The 1960s saw Portugal’s first footballing peak. Bolstered by the recruitment of talent from its African colonies – such as Eusébio and Mário Coluna from Mozambique – both the national team and Benfica were achieving great success. The country was under António de Oliveira Salazar’s Estado Novo (New State), which was based on nationalism and Catholicism.

Salazar was a country man and actually hated football, but his regime had been careful that the country’s most successful side of the era – Benfica – changed the name of its anthem and its nickname to avoid any confusion with being perceived as communist. Hence Benfica became known as the Encarnados (the Scarlets) rather than the Vermelhos (Reds)

The influx of African players since the 1940s was aimed to support the notion of integration within a country that was still the head of an empire, according to Portuguese football journalist, Miguel Pereira. 

‘Nevertheless, as with all things with Salazar, there was never truly an intention to support football clubs economically or use football as a propaganda weapon,’ Pereira tells me. ‘They simply took advantage of events and that great Benfica generation and the national team forged with their attacking line-up for the 1966 World Cup was one of those opportunities.’

Portuguese clubs were also forbidden from selling their best players abroad and the regime considered them property of the state. It was also around this period that the Estado Novo started elevating the role of football, including it in the ‘Three Fs’ to promote the image of Portugal abroad – Fado (folk music), Futebol and Fatima, the Catholic pilgrimage site.

Trouble at home and abroad

Portugal finished third in the 1966 World Cup in England, but all the while discontent with the colonial wars at home was growing, with protestors even taking to the streets. Among the key sources of public dissent were the universities, none more so than the country’s most prestigious university and one of the world’s oldest, Coimbra. The wars against African colonial uprising began in 1962 and students that failed at universities often found themselves drafted into the army to go to Africa to fight. This stoked anti-government strikes and protests. Salazar charged his protégé Marcelo Caetano to deal with them.

When Salazar suffered a suspected stroke in 1968 his role as Prime Minister was assumed by Caetano. When Caetano and his ministers and military personnel visited Coimbra to open a new building at the university in 1969, they were confronted by a student protest that led to a weeks-long stand-off with students barricading themselves into campus. 

Coimbra’s local football club is Académica de Coimbra. Students could play for the club at that point, right up until the club went professional in the 1980s. ‘Académica at that time was a very political club,’ Miguel Pereira explains. ‘A lot of players who wanted to get a degree went to Académica while they were studying before signing for bigger teams. Players like Toni, Artur Jorge and Manuel António. A lot of the players were also students that came from the African colonies and most of them had connections with the military resistance groups.’

Indeed, on a club tour to Angola during the sixties, four African Académica de Coimbra players slipped away to join pro-independence resistance movements.

Student uprising

With incredible timing, in the summer of 1969, Académica de Coimbra made it to its fourth Taça de Portugal (Portuguese Cup) final. The showpiece season finale is held at Lisbon’s historic Estádio Nacional do Jamor and is a huge occasion in Portugal.  With students continuing their protests and emboldened by the worldwide student protests of 1968, the final presented Académica’s students with a significant platform. Earlier in the tournament, Académica’s players had demonstrated their solidarity for students by observing 30 seconds of silence ahead of a game against Vitoria Guimarães. In the two-legged semi-final against Sporting, Académica players switched from their traditional all-black kit to white with a black armband to symbolise mourning.^⁠1

Ricardo Martins is the writer and director of a 2009 film about Académica’s 1969 cup run, called Futebol de Causas (Football with a Cause). He spent months delving through the national film and TV archives and interviewing former players. 

‘Académica players were privileged compared to other students because they weren’t sent to war, but they did share houses with friends that did, so they decided to make a stand,’ he tells me. ‘They believed it wasn’t fair that young people didn’t have a say in society, so – in solidarity – every player set out to spread the word.’

On the day of the final itself against Benfica, more than 30,000 students from Coimbra and Lisbon descended on the capital’s streets to support the Coimbra side. They held banners and as a result the cup final was not broadcast on TV, although radio listeners could hear the students chanting throughout the match. Students also handed out flyers to the Benfica fans in the Jamor who had no idea of what was going on at Coimbra. 

Neither the President of the Republic, Américo Thomáz – a Belenenses supporter – nor Caetano or any other high-ranking official attended. The police were ordered not to intervene to avoid a potential massacre. Académica de Coimbra’s players took to the field in black students’ gowns to drive home their support and walked onto the pitch slowly, as if they were pallbearers. 

Benfica midfielder Toni had played for Académica four years previously and briefed his Encarnados teammates of the situation. They also walked slowly onto the pitch and agreed to celebrate with Académica, should the Coimbra side win. Académica took an 81st minute lead in the final through an António goal. The plan was that if they won, the Académica players would take the Taça de Portugal trophy into the stands to share their victory with the students.

The Coimbra side only led for four minutes, when Simōes pounced for Benfica on 85 mins when the ‘keeper spilled a free kick. Eusébio netted the winner in extra time for Benfica, but – true to their word – the Benfica players swapped shirts and collected the trophy dressed in the black Académica shirt as a sign of respect for the students. Académica had lost the match but certainly gained a lot of respect and attention for the students’ cause.

‘It would have been a tremendous moment if Académica had won and done that lap of honour,’ Martins adds. ‘Most Académica players told me they had to make a stand for their conscience. They had sacrificed their football careers for the cause, and I felt I had to tell their story.’

Despite being one of the leading clubs in Portugal in the 1960s, none of the Académica team were selected for the national side. Instead, they went on to become brilliant doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers and some were even leaders of the 1974 Carnation Revolution.

The incapacitated Salazar died in 1970 and the entire authoritarian regime fell on 25 April 1974. Former president Thomáz was exiled to Brazil. 

‘No one talks about what caused the 1974 revolution – it started in 1969,’ Martins concludes. ‘I find young people do not know the Académica story, but older people who remember it were grateful that the story was once again in the spotlight.’

For more stories like this, please grab a copy of my second book, The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism.

¹ http://www.academica-oaf.pt/home/2018-07-18-15-13-58/historia/#