Sporting Clube da Praia, short form: Sporting Praia (Capeverdean Crioulo, ALUPEC or ALUPEK as well as Badiu: Sporting Klubi di Praia) is a professional football club that plays in the Santiago South Premier Division in Cape Verde. It is based in the capital city of Praia in the island of Santiago, one of the unrelegated clubs in the south of the island along with three of the city's four historically mightiest clubs including Académica, Boavista and CD Travadores. Along with Académcia, Boavista, Desportivo, Travadores and Vitória, it is one of several teams that share the same ground, Estádio da Várzea, which has a capacity of 8,000. Sporting has won six championships since independence and a few before independence. The first title was won in the summer of 1962 before independence. Sporting recently won the 2017 national title. Its current president is Carlos Daniel Caetano and its manager is Lito, who once played for Portuguese clubs as footballer.
Sporting Praia is one of the most decorated football (soccer) club in Cape Verde and is the island's most decorated club, having won about 44 official titles, 14 are national titles and 30 are regional titles.
History
The club was founded on 2 December 1923 and is the oldest club in both the city and the island, it is the third oldest on the nation. The name is identical to the Sporting Clube de Portugal and is the 20th affiliate. Sporting Praia is the second oldest Sporting CP affiliate in Africa and its islands after Sportin Clube de Luanda.
In the regional competition
Before independence, Sporting won several regional titles in 1961, 1964 and in 1968. In the final years of Portuguese rule, Sporting Praia celebrated its 50th anniversary of its foundation in 1973. A year later, they won their final regional title before independence of the archipelago.
From independence to the breakup of the Santiago Championships into two zones and after Tó Lobo was manager of Sporting Praia in the 1980s and the early 1990s, he led to win a few regional titles in 1984, 1985, 1988 and 1991. Later Tóca was manager for most of the 1990s. Sporting won two more regional titles for Santiago in 1997 and in 1998.
Notable players at the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st included Piguita, Vargas and Ronny (Souto). For most of the time in the 20th century, some of its greatest players of the club played in Europe mostly Portugal.
In 1998, Sporting Praia celebrated its 75th anniversary of its foundation. Tó Lobo was once again coach for Sporting for the early 2000s. Tó Lobo led his team to win a regional title in 2002, the club finished with 38 points.
Sporting's success after the breakup of the Santiago Championships into two zones Beto became coach of the club in late 2004 and remained until 2012, he took the club to further successes. Sporting had a total of eight titles for the South Zone, their first was in 2005 and won four consecutive in 2008. Also in 2005, Sporting had their best season with 16 wins, not a single loss and most of all 49 points surpassed on 7 April 2017. Of any of the island leagues, Sporting held the record for the most points for eleven years when Santiago North Premier Division's Varandinha took it with 63 points in 2016, second would be Scorpion Vermelho with 61 which Sporting would be third.
Sporting has the longest unbeaten record with 40 matches, it started on 30 April 2003 and ended on 10 December 2005.
On 10 November 2007, Sporting the champion faced Académica Praia, the cup winner in the 2007 regional super cup, the match had a goal draw and went into extra time, during that time, the stadium had a poor visibility and the match was halted, it was not replayed until 14 December, Sporting defeated Académica 2–1 and won their first super cup title for the South Zone.
Beto later led the club to its greatest success that Sporting had ever seen but not as they did in 2005 in 2009 and 2011, they were runner up of Santiago South, though the club entered the national championships on two occasions, the other as automatic holders of the national title. The greatest players of the time in the 2000s were Dário (Furtado), Bock, Platini, Zé di Tchecha, Stopira, Alex (Aires Marques), Babanco and later Tom Tavares, Patrick Andrade, Loloti and Figo who mainly led its successes even at the national level. In the early 2010s to 2015, one of its goalkeepers is the Senegalese Maguette. Another Senegalese played but a player named Théo Mendy. As did in its early decades of the club especially the 20th century, afterwards most of these greatest players later played in Europe predominantly Portugal.