There is a strange split running right through Portuguese football in this game. The crown almost never leaves the country. The crowns jewels almost never stay in it.

At home, the title has gone to the same place two years running. Abroad, the most famous Portuguese footballer alive is 41 years old and scoring goals in the fifth division of England, a long way from the league his name should own. This is the story of a nation that keeps its throne and exports its kings.

The dragons don't lose

Start with the part that has stopped being a question. With one game of Season 3 left to play, Porto are champions of Portugal again — 90 points from 37 matches, 28 wins, just three defeats, and an eight-point cushion that Benfica can no longer close. The dragons sealed it the way they have sealed everything this year, with a 3-1 home win over Amadora in front of 49,363 fans on a Saturday night in June.

It is back-to-back now. Manager SoccerversePortugal inherited a Porto side that finished fifth in Season 1 and turned it into a machine: in Season 2 they won the league and the cup as a double, and Season 3 has simply been more of the same — the meanest defence in the division, only 13 goals conceded across a long campaign. As the title closed in, the camp said the quiet part out loud in the community:

Porto 1 point away from the title. We can be champions again today. 2nd place 2 points away.

What makes this Porto side worth watching, though, isn't only the defence. It's a 19-year-old. Rodrigo Mora, valued at 10.7M SVC, has chipped in 11 goals and four assists from attacking midfield while striker Samu Omorodion has hammered in 18. The champions are not an old team running out of road. They are a young one just getting started.

Everything but eight points

Behind them sit two clubs who, on paper, had every reason to win this and didn't.

Benfica are the biggest thing in Portuguese football by almost every measure that isn't points: the largest stadium in the division at 65,647 seats, the biggest fanbase at 56,248, and the league's best attack with 72 goals. They also pulled off the homecoming of the season. João Félix — once rated as high as 88 in this game — came back to Benfica from England for a fee of 28.0M SVC, and he has repaid it with eight goals and eight assists, the joint-best creative return in the league. Add Nicolás Otamendi marshalling the back line and Mohamed Amdouni's 13 goals up front, and Benfica had the firepower. They finished second, eight points short.

Then there is Lisboa, who own something nobody else in Portugal can match: money. SAIKARU's club is sitting on a balance of 134.6M SVC — comfortably the richest vault in the division — propping up a squad valued at 208M SVC with the highest top-21 rating in the country. They also have the man chasing the Golden Boot. Pedro Gonçalves, the playmaker-forward they call Pote, has scored 19 league goals, level at the summit of the scoring charts with Vila do Conde's Clayton Fernandes Silva and one clear of Porto's Samu.

The richest squad. The top scorer. Third place. In Portugal, this season, money bought a lot of things. It did not buy the league.

The town of eight thousand that gatecrashed the giants

The most human story in the Portuguese top flight belongs to a club whose entire stadium would fit inside one stand at Benfica.

Moreira de Cónegos play in a ground that holds 13,000 and draw a fanbase of barely 8,500 — a fraction of the giants above them. They finished fourth. Fourth, ahead of Braga, ahead of half the famous names in the country, on 65 points, with forward Alan de Souza weighing in with eight goals and five assists. Their manager, who posts in the community as desousap, marked a year in the game by explaining how the whole adventure started — and accidentally wrote the season's best mission statement:

I decided to buy some influence in Moreirense and become its manager. They were in 16th in the Portuguese league and I ended up the season in 8th... currently 9th but with a younger and more balanced squad. I like how the game progressed so far and I'll be happy to play forever.

From 16th to a top-four finish in the company of Porto and Benfica. Some kingdoms are built on bank balances. This one was built on someone who decided to stay.

The kings who play abroad

And then there are the legends — except, in Soccerverse, Portugal's legends are scattered across the planet.

The headline act is Cristiano Ronaldo, and his story here is almost too good. At 41, he is not in Lisbon or Porto. He is at Sutton, in the lower reaches of English football. Last season he scored 70 league goals in the sixth tier and dragged the club up a division. This season, in England's fifth tier, he has 30 goals in 36 games and seven Man-of-the-Match awards. His market value has slipped under 2M SVC, his wages have not, and still nobody in that division can stop him. The greatest goalscorer this country ever produced is grinding promotions out of the English non-league, one hat-trick at a time.

He is not alone abroad. Bruno Fernandes pulls strings at Manchester Red. Matheus Nunes turned out for Manchester Blue, Pedro Neto for Chelsea, and the veteran defender Danilo Pereira is seeing out his career in Saudi Arabia. Portugal produces footballers the way it always has — "Portugal as a whole is producing some good footballers," as one trader put it in the transfer channel — and then watches the best of them go and win things in someone else's country.

João Félix is the exception that proves the rule. He came home. Most don't.

The view from here

So this is Portugal in Soccerverse, end of Season 3: a settled throne and a restless diaspora. Porto are champions again and look built to stay there. Benfica have the crowds, the cathedral and a returning hero, and still need to find eight points from somewhere. Lisboa have all the money in the country and a third-place finish to show for it. At the bottom, Chaves are already gone, 20th with 68 goals conceded.

And five divisions and one border away, a 41-year-old in red keeps scoring goals that should, by every law of football romance, be lighting up the Primeira Liga instead. Portugal keeps its crown. It just can't seem to keep its kings.