Sporting to face former Lions captain in Allianz Cup quarter-finals | OneFootball

Liga Portugal announced, on the afternoon of this Friday, the schedule for the quarter-finals of the Taça da Liga. Eight teams will compete for the trophy in 2025/26: the top six finishers of the 2024-25 League and the champion and runner-up of last season’s Second League. The Lions will have to overcome Alverca, led by Custódio, former captain of the Alvalade Club.

The matches will be played in a single-leg knockout format, with the goal of determining the four finalists who will take part in the Final Four in Leiria, between January 6 and 10, 2026. The quarter-finals will kick off on October 28, with the clash between Sporting and the Ribatejo side.

The following day, October 29, two matches will take place: Braga vs. Santa Clara and Benfica vs. Tondela. The last game of this stage will only be on December 4, when Porto hosts Vitória de Guimarães, thus closing the list of semi-finalists for the competition.

With the schedule set, the teams already know the path they must take to secure a place in the decisive phase of a competition that will have the city of Leiria as its stage. Sporting is looking to win the tournament for the fifth time in its history, after losing to Benfica in the last edition (1-1, 7-6 defeat on penalties).

In recent days, Liga Portugal has expressed its intention to “raise the quality” of the Taça da Liga, whose Final Four will be held, for the sixth consecutive time, in Leiria. At the competition’s presentation, at the Estádio Municipal Dr. Magalhães Pessoa, the president of LPFP, Reinaldo Teixeira, recalled that the competition “has been growing,” both “in the performance of the teams and in the stadium conditions,” and highlighted the “great quality of the competition and great competitiveness.” However, the venue for the tournament may change in the future.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.