Comparing College Football to the European Soccer Experience

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to travel to Portugal. After attending soccer games in England and Spain in 2025, making it happen in a new European country became a priority. Luckily, everything came together. Just like last year, which you can read about here, below is a comparison between my Portugal experience with those I’ve had at college football games for 30 years.

My travels took me to both Lisbon and Porto, but timing left me with only one game option: Porto. And luckily for me, the club was at home to host Nottingham Forest (from England) in a Europa League quarterfinal.

For those of you not family with European soccer, the Europa League is a watered-down version of the Champions League. The best comparison I can make is that the Europa League is the NIT while the Champions League is the NCAA tournament.

But once you get into the quarterfinals, the remaining clubs in the Europa League are generally considered “big clubs”. As for Porto, they have won the Portuguese League (Primeira Liga) 30 times, the Champions League twice and the Europa League twice. So, they are considered a big European club.

Getting to the Game

Both games in England and Spain were a travel disaster. In London, the stadium was in a condensed suburb, while in Madrid, the traffic was nightmarish. In Porto the overall design worked better. They really push public transportation, with more trains being available on game days. Public transportation is also cheap. Personally, I took an Uber, which proved to be very smooth and got me to the game about 45 minutes before the start.

On a slightly different note, Ubers in all of Portugal are much cheaper than in the United States. Even before a game, when they tend to increase pricing here, in Porto it cost me five euros (about $6) for a five mile ride to the stadium.

Stadium

Porto plays in Estadio do Dragao, which has a capacity of 50,033 and opened in 2003. The top of the stadium is open to the field while the stands on all four sides are covered. While it is more than 20 years old, it does give off modern vibes.

Concessions are similar to US stadiums, while one big difference is the lack of ushers. At college football games they tend to be over abundant, while at Porto, I would’ve had a problem finding one in 30 minutes.