Sporting Clube de Portugal (Euronext: SCP), commonly referred to as Sporting CP or Sporting and colloquially known as Sporting Lisbon outside of Portugal, is a Portuguese multi-sports club based in Portugal's capital city of Lisbon. Although they successfully compete in a number of different sports, Sporting is mostly known for its association football team. Founded in Lisbon in July 1, 1906, it is one of the "Três Grandes" (The Big Three, in English) football clubs in Portugal, with Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Futebol Clube do Porto being the other two clubs, Sporting's two biggest rivals. With more than 100,000 registered club members, its teams, athletes and supporters are often nicknamed Leões (English: The Lions) by its fans.
During the first century of the club's existence, the teams and the athletes of Sporting won 3 Olympic gold medal, as well as many silver and bronze medals and thousands of national and district titles.
During the founding period (1906), José Alvalade made known his wish to transform Sporting into a "....big Club, as big as the biggest in Europe". Daring to clear pathways in a time when, in Portugal, sports were still activities in their developmental stages and having mainly elitist characteristics, the first "Sportinguistas" managed to found what became the present day successful Sporting Clube de Portugal. Sporting has more than three million fans on all continents with up to 300 supporters' clubs, offices and delegations, as well as more than 150,000 affiliates.
Sporting was one of the founding members of the Primeira Liga in 1933 and it has never been relegated from the Primeira Divisão (First Division) of Portuguese football, along with FC Porto and Benfica.
Sporting is the third most successful Portuguese football club in Portuguese competitions, with 44 titles, behind Benfica, which has 67 titles, and FC Porto, which has 64 titles, and the third most successful Portuguese football club in international competitions, along with SC Braga, with 1 title, behind FC Porto, which has 7 titles, and behind Benfica, which has 3 titles. It is the third most successful Portuguese football club in terms of total titles, with 45 titles, behind FC Porto, which has 71 titles, and Benfica which has 70 titles.
Domestically, Sporting won a total of 18 Portuguese Liga titles, 19 Championship of Portugal/Portuguese Cup titles and 7 Portuguese SuperCup titles.
Internationally, Sporting won the 1963–64 European Cup Winners' Cup and were runners-up in the 2004-05 UEFA Cup.
Read more about Sporting Clube De Portugal: Name, Organization, Football, Club Records, Current Squad, Sporting Notable Former Players, Former Coaches, Other Sports, Presidents, Supporters
Famous quotes containing the word sporting:
“The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)