Can Porto Remain Undefeated This Season?

2010

Porto are the clear favourites to win the Portuguese Primeira Liga this season. At the time of writing, they are 6 points clear of Sporting Club and 15 points clear of Benfica with 5 matches remaining.

The aim will be to win the Portuguese title without losing a game and as things stood ahead of the meeting with Portimonense, Porto had won 25 of their 29 league matches, drawing 4 and losing 0.

In terms of winning runs, the undefeated spell goes back to last season and Porto have gone 57 league games without defeat. That is a new Primeira Liga record and under the guidance of Sérgio Conceição, Porto have not lost a league fixture in 18 months.

There have yet to be any trophies during the undefeated run but that likely to change come the end of this season.

The question is, how long can Porto continue undefeated? They face Benfica away before the end of the 2021/22 season and that will be the match that will really test their credentials. Win that game and Porto could finish the season without defeat in the Primeira Liga, which would be a tremendous achievement.

If we look at some of the other recent unbeaten runs in the top European leagues, Bayern Munich enjoyed a 53-match undefeated run between 2012 and 2014.

The German giants are yet to complete a full season without defeat but Bayern Munich went 25 Bundesliga matches without a loss under Jupp Heynckes and romped home to the Bundesliga title the following season under Pep Guardiola, sealing top spot by March.

AC Milan enjoyed a 58-game unbeaten run in Serie A between 1991 and 1993. They went the entire 1991/92 season without losing a single game, which was incredible considering the quality of the teams in Italy at the time.

The following season, the run finally ended in week 24 of the season as AC Milan lost at home to Parma. The 58-match undefeated run is a record for the top five European leagues and it could stand for some time to come.

Arsenal managed to go the whole 2003/04 season without losing a Premier League game. With the addition of some matches towards the end of the previous season and at the beginning of the following campaign, Arsenal’s unbeaten run extended to 49 Premier League matches.

Their half century of undefeated league games was halted by their great rivals, Manchester United but it remains the longest undefeated run in the Premier League.

Moving to Spain and Barcelona enjoyed 43 games in La Liga without losing between 2017 and 2018. The run started with Luis Enrique in charge and he stepped aside for Ernesto Valverde.

His team was not fun to watch but they got the job done and Barcelona almost went the whole 2017/18 season without defeat but lost the final game to Levante.

Outside the top European leagues, Steaua Bucharest hold the record for the longest unbeaten league run. They went 104 matches without a defeat in the Romanian topflight between 1986 and 1989.

It is unlikely Porto are going to match that but it will be interesting to see how long they can remain undefeated.