Lisbon colours: The hues of Portuguese football

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

You can never take your own football for granted.

The hues of the English game, the mottled yellow of the blades of grass bleached by an Indian Summer. The pink of a prawn cocktail crisp packet crunched underneath the burgundy and black of an Adidas Kegler Super, en route to pick up a golden pint, of gassy lager in a clear plastic pot.

Hold it up to the sun, you’ll see it all through there. Drink it in.

But if the tints of England help to make football home, Portugal’s colours are those of a night out and nightclub vibrant. Maximalist, laid on thick, why pick one shade one you can have seven? A Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen Lisbon scheme. Slosh it on liberally.

The fans of OS Belenenses stream into the Jamor Estádio Nacional in the capital for a good half an hour after kick-off. And why not? For this match is a mere current in the tide of this club’s overflowing history.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. OS Belenenses at Jamor.

The shirts of Os Azuis do Restelo are big-club blue and so they should be, worn by the first team outside of Portugal’s big three to win the Primeira Divisão.

At Almada AC on the South Bank of the River Tagus, the statue of Christ The King stands resplendent but further eye-catching is Campo de Jogos do Pragal, in its Boca blue and yellow, tie-died by the climate.

How much a pull the beautiful game must be to turn your back on god for 90 minutes on those cornflower steps, fissured like our lives, the warm dusty embrace for a well-earned sit down. A mop of the brow.

Atlético Clube de Portugal chuckles in the face of two colour Italian outfits such as the Rossoneri for this team is yellow, red, blue, white and black.

Every spare surface is ripe for a crest, every railing one to be painted, they might paint you too if you sit still long enough.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Atlético Clube de Portugal.

Casa Pia is an orphanage club and know how to do a black and white kit, but at their Estádio Pina Manique they are sure to brighten up the monochrome.

A tinge of blue makes a mural pop and lifts the yellow into something gleaming.

You’ve never known a climb like the stairs within the José Alvalade Stadium at Sporting CP, like Willy Wonka’s plan B for a broken down great glass elevator, in fluorescent peppermint.

Benfica’s Estádio da Luz has an imposing bronze eagle, softened by the pink blooms which caress the floral city.

Regulars eat the rice and the beans and the ribs and the chips at the Zé Pinto restaurant, cocooned in Benfica souvenirs, that bring a contentment, despite being warning-sign red.

In Lisbon’s colour-wheel night on the tiles, neon images bounce off the retinas, everything is possible in the moment here, if you can stay steady, as in football.