After Christmas, tradition dictates that we start looking at the new year, taking stock of what has happened. In the big three of Portuguese football, here is how much has changed (or not…) between one sporting season and another. FC Porto, a year ago, was coached by Vítor Bruno, who was fired shortly after being considered the best coach of the month of December. Things in life, especially football... Internally, the post-election division showed a club always ready to explode and the pressure was so much that André Villas-Boas went to Mexico to look for a young coach with an idea. Spoiler alert: The idea was terrible. From then on it went downhill until a miserable Club World Cup and there was nothing left to do but start a new cycle. Then Francesco Farioli arrived, labeled as the coach who lost in the end, but with him came a beautiful truckload of players and everyone seemed to have immediately bought into the team's project. family portista. The first football presented was devastating, beautiful, exciting, bordering on perfection. Afterwards, FC Porto became more pragmatic and is now the deserved leader of the League, with 14 wins and 1 draw, and only 4 goals conceded, which is halfway to winning. The squad is now more valuable, the coach knows the dangers of taking his foot off the accelerator and the president works with greater peace of mind. It's not strange, it was already known: it all depends on what happens on the field. Sporting, a year ago, had a troubled Christmas, including a change of coach. Ruben Amorim was already there (and what a beautiful gift that Man United was...), João Pereira was gone in an instant and Rui Borges arrived, with great humility, to win a historic second championship. The summer brought the soap opera Gyokeres, but the Lions have other protagonists who ensured that the Swedish arsenal would not be so missed. All things considered, Sporting is better than it was at the end of 2024, but it needs a little more against the big players to become the leader. At Benfica it seems like a year had much more than 365 days. Bruno Lage started 2025 with that feeling that everything was better than with Roger Schmidt, then he lost everything at the end and started the new season with many millions in reinforcements, but one defeat with Qarabag away from being fired. José Mourinho arrived, there was the hurricane of elections and the feeling is finally beginning to emerge that there is a solid team, capable of doing better. If it is possible to maintain the highs and contain the lows, 2026 will be more exciting. See you next year!