Taça da Liga
The Taça da Liga (pronounced: [ˈtasɐ dɐ ˈliɣɐ], English: League Cup), officially known as bwin Cup, is a competition organized by the Portuguese League for Professional Football started in the 2007–08 football season.[1] For the first three seasons it was known as Carlsberg Cup for sponsorship reasons. It was proposed by Sporting Clube de Portugal and Boavista in 2006 and approved by all clubs from the Portuguese professional leagues in a meeting in Porto on 28 November 2006. All teams of the two levels of professional football, Primeira Liga and Liga de Honra, participate in this competition. It is unanimously considered the least important professional competition in Portugal. Most of the clubs take the chance to rotate their main squad and also give opportunities to the youngsters. The current holder is Benfica, who defeated FC Paços de Ferreira 2–1.
Format
The Taça da Liga saw changes in its format since the debut season in order to increase the number of matches and also incomes for both clubs and league. For the 2010–11 season, the approved format is the following:
- First Round: Liga de Honra teams separated into four groups of four teams each with each team playing three games. Top two will advance to next round.
- Second Round: Two-legged matches between the eight First Round survivors, the two Primeira Liga promoted teams and six worst from the previous Primeira Liga season.
- Third Round: four groups of four teams each, containing the winners of the Second Round and eight top-placed teams in the previous Primeira Liga season. Only the group winners advance.
- Knockout: Both semi-finals and final are one-legged fixtures.
This adopted format results in 67 matches being played.
League Cup finals
Performance by club
Participating clubs
See also
References
- ^ Taça da Liga em Agosto (Portuguese)
- ^ Boavista excluded from 2009 League Cup after missing players inscription deadline [1] (Portuguese)
- ^ Boavista excluded from professional competitions after failing to pay debts [2] (Portuguese)
External links
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Taça da Liga
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