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Leixões Sport Club (IPA: [lɐi'ʃõĩʃ spɔɾ 'klub(ɨ)]), or simply Leixões, is a sports club from Matosinhos, Portugal. It is organized into several specialized departments for many events like football, boxing, karate, volleyball, swimming, and billiards. Its professional football team is its most well known department.
[edit] History
Leixões Sport Club was formed in 1907, this makes them one of Portugal's most historic sports clubs. Although not known to many clubs in Europe in the modern game, in the 1960s they featured regularly in the European Competitions and faced and were defeated by Glasgow Football giants Celtic in the European Cup en route to Celtics European Cup triumph in 1967. They then disappeared in the 70's into the lower echelons of Portuguese football and were seemingly forgotten, but in 2002 they returned to the main stage with a tremendous Cup run, defeating Sporting Braga 3-1 away to secure a Cup final place and UEFA Cup football via Sportings Champions League finish they lost the Final 1-0 and went onto Europe. In 2003 they lost 4-2 on Aggregate to Greek side PAOK Salonika, losing 4-1 in Greece. The same year 2003 they romped to the Segunda Divisão (Division Two) title with 94 points and with it Promotion to the Liga de Honra. In 2004 they just avoided relegation back to Division Two and finished 14th. A year later they battled to finish 7th in the League. And finally in 2006 they almost reached the Portuguese Liga, losing out to Desportivo das Aves in the Promotion chase and finished 3rd, two points behind Aves. 3rd usually merits a promotion in Portugal but due to a League re-construction to all leagues it meant only the top two would go up (Beira-Mar as Champions and Aves as runners-up). Next year, Leixões are among the favourites to gain promotion back to the Liga - 16 years after their relegation. The supporters of Leixões are different of the most of supporters in Portugal because they are really very entusiashtic.
Best come-backs
1961/62, 1st round: FC La Chaux-de-Fonds 6-2 Leixoes (Porto) Leixões (Porto) 5-0 FC La Chaux-de-Fonds Leixoes win 7-6 on aggregate
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
José Fonseca
